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SHAMROCK-LAND 




Old Blarney Castle. 

The most noted structure of its kind in the world. 
Cannae McCarthy in 1446. 



It was erected by 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



RAMBLE THROUGH IRELAND 



BY 



PLUMMER F. JONES 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 

1908 



Copyright, 1908, 631 

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



Published, September, 1908 









I LIBRARY of CONGRESS I 

Two 001 

21 1808 1 






«wtej 



The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. USA.. 



DeUicateQ to 
MY PARENTS 

FROM WHOM I INHERITED A LOVE FOR NATURE 

AND A SYMPATHY FOR MY 

FELLOW-MEN 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. First Glimpses of Ireland i 

II. Old Cork and the Castle of Blarney . . 30 

III. Walks and Talks with the People of Kil- 

LARNEY 58 

IV. A Ramble through the Golden Vale of Tip- 

PERARY . 87 

V. On a Jaunting-car in Tipperary .... 118 

VI. With the Peat-cutters in Galway . . . 147 

VII. Gal way's Tragedy — The First Lynching 175 

VIII. In Quest of Goldsmith's Deserted Village . 198 

IX. The Irish Woman — Aristocrat and Peasant 218 

X. The Two Irelands — North and South . . 247 

XI. Rural Ireland as it is To-day 282 

XII. Sunset at the Giant's Causeway .... 313 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Old Blarney Castle Frontispiece ' 

Queenstown and Her Harbor 10 

An Irish Train, Primitive as all Irish Trains are ... 16 
Round Tower and Village Street in Cloyne, near Cork Har- 
bor 18' 

Mardyke Walk, Cork 34 

A Post-office, Three Miles from Cork 42 

Blarney Castle, near Cork 48 

On an Irish Road , 56 

Old Weir Bridge — Killarney 64 

Upper Lake — Killarney 66 

A Lane in Killarney Town 72. 

The Lower Lake, Killarney 80 

Old Ross Castle on the Lower Lake, Killarney .... 86 

In an Alley of an Inland Irish Town 102 

A Cromlech, near Dundalk 106 

Old Cross and Round Tower no 

View from the Summit of the Rock of Cashel . . . . 116 

The Irish Jaunting-car 118 

A Typical Irish Landscape 124 

A Road in Tipperary 128 

"The Top o' the Morning to Ye" 136 

An Irish Country Store 142 

A Rural School 152 - 

In Sight of the Grassy Fields 160 

On His Knees in a Potato Patch 164 



x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



In a Galway Peat Bog 166 ' 

Three Half-grown White Shoats Emerged from the Open 

Doorway 172 < 

"From that Window Walter Lynch was Flung" . . . 196, 

Standing Bare-legged on a Rocky Irish Hillside . . . 202 / 
"Glory to God! Amuriky will yet be th' Home of this 

Ould Mon" 204' 

Ruins of the Goldsmith Home 206 

In the Heart of the Deserted Village — a Home that has 

Survived 212 < 

Ruins of the "Busy Mill," Goldsmith's Deserted Village . 214 

Tavern — the Three Jolly Pigeons, the Deserted Village . 216^ 

View from the Home of One of the Gentry 220 „ 

Milking the Goat 226 . 

An Old Timer Coming Home from the Wood .... 236^ 

Peddling Turf — Twelve Sods a Penny 238 

A Seller of Blackthorn Sticks 242 / 

A Landscape View of North Ireland 264 / 

Homes in Southwestern Ireland 270 - 

Coragher's Farm, the Home of the Ancestry of President 

McKinley 282' 

Landscape — Western Ireland „ 284 ' 

An Irish Interior , 292 

The Vale of Glendalough, County Wicklow , 304 << 

A Bit of Coast in North Ireland „ 318 

Dunluce Castle, near the Giant's Causeway . 324 

Sunset at the Giant's Causeway 332 f 



INTRODUCTION 

This book is only an account of a summer 
ramble through Ireland. I entered the coun- 
try a total stranger, interested in the island 
chiefly on account of what I had heard and 
read of its people, its old ruins, its stories and 
legends, and the reputed beauty of its land- 
scapes. I traveled through sixteen of the 
thirty-two counties, visiting each of the four 
divisions of the island, North, East, South and 
West, and coming in contact with all classes 
and conditions of its citizens, from those who 
lived in marble front houses in the cities to 
the inhabitants of one-room mud huts in the 
mountains of the West and the bogs of the 
interior. When I sailed away from the port 
of Larne for Scotland I felt that I had had a 
remarkable experience. 

In this book I have added to what I actually 
saw and heard bits of Irish history gathered 
from reliable sources and some interesting 
legends which I had little difficulty in picking 



xii INTRODUCTION 

up along the way. These additions may serve 
to give to the reader a view-point similar to that 
which I possessed when engaged in this pleas- 
ant ramble. 

I trust that no reader will hold me too strictly 
to account for any apparent opinions which 
may be directly or indirectly expressed in the 
book. I have not intended to express opinions, 
because I have such an imperfect knowledge 
of Irish history, politics and character that I 
do not feel competent to draw conclusions in 
matters which have puzzled wise men for cen- 
turies. Besides this, I have not the least desire 
to change any one's views on the Irish ques- 
tion. I myself have no definite views; and I 
hope that however great my knowledge of Ire- 
land or Irish affairs may in the future become, 
I will never allow myself to be tied down to a 
side. 

Such impressions as were made upon me by 
my contact with the Irish people in their own 
country are altogether unprejudiced impres- 
sions. There is no reason why they should be 
otherwise. For I am an American citizen, 
and my ancestors came to Virginia so long ago 
that I do not hold the slightest allegiance to 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

the several lands from which they came; least 
of all have I any personal interest in Ireland's 
troubles with England. 

To me this summer trip through Ireland was 
a delightful one; I shall never forget it. I was 
altogether charmed with all that I saw — not 
only with the scenery and the ruins of that 
fascinating land, but with the people them- 
selves, their manners, their quaint speech, their 
wit, their pathos, and their unbounded hos- 
pitality. If in this book I can convey to the 
reader even in an imperfect way the impres- 
sions which those things I saw and heard in 
Ireland made upon me I shall feel amply re- 
warded for my task. 

While on this trip and after my return home 
I wrote a number of articles and sketches, 
recording impressions of the country and its 
people, which were widely circulated. I would 
like, therefore, to acknowledge my indebted- 
ness to the following American magazines 
and newspapers, in each of which appeared 
one or more articles from which I have drawn 
matter for use in this book: The American 
Monthly Review of Reviews, The World To- 
day, The Book News Monthly, The Interior, 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

The National Home Journal, The Pittsburg 
Dispatch, The Providence Journal, The Rich- 
mond Times-Dispatch, and the Columbia (S. C.) 
State. 

Plummer F. Jones. 



SHAMROCK-LAND 
CHAPTER I 

FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 

IT was the afternoon of a June day, and a 
cold, biting wind swept the decks of the great 
ocean steamship which a few days before had 
set sail from America for Queenstown and 
Liverpool. The day had dawned bright, and 
clear, and cold, — just such a day as one who 
was reared in a Middle Atlantic State is accus- 
tomed to associate with early October, — the 
opening of chestnut burrs, the jay's shrill cry, 
and the tang of autumn fields. Yet before 
noon, contrary to every American notion of 
climatic virtue, the air began to fill with a blind- 
ing, stinging mist which settled down over the 
ocean like a pall. 

The ocean chart, posted in the cabin at noon, 
had indicated that we were within a hundred 
and thirty miles of Queenstown. Eyes that had 
grown tired of the gray monotony of the ocean 



2 SHAMROCK-LAND 

now brightened as they peered through the 
gloom for some sign of the journey's end. Land 
could not be far away, for seagulls and swallows 
had begun to follow behind our vessel, and far 
off ahead in the misty distance steamers with 
long trails of black smoke passed beyond our 
range of vision bearing the commerce of a 
foreign world. Out in front of us three naked 
spars stood between our ship and the gloomy 
sky. About this vessel, scattered here and 
there upon the sea, little black specks rose and 
fell with the waves. It was a fleet of dark- 
sailed fishing craft, manned by fishermen of 
swarthy complexion and the strong, firm fea- 
tures of the Celt. They waved us a rough 
welcome from their unsteady boats as we 
passed. 

A rift appeared in the storm-clouds and the 
swirling waste of mist. The red sun struggled 
out of the gloom, sending long lines of light 
across the white-capped waves. Far away on 
the north, peering through a melting cloud of 
vapor, and swept with restless winds, arose — 
ah! how wondrous in beauty! — an opaline 
mountain of Ireland! What a significance that 
thus through storm and darkness should have 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 3 

come to us the first glimpse of this strange, sor- 
rowful island of the sea! 

It was Lord Beaconsfield who in the climax 
of a great speech ascribed all the troubles of 
Ireland to the fact that she is surrounded by a 
melancholy ocean. And who indeed can resist 
the thought that the minds of men are gov- 
erned and their dispositions and temperaments 
largely determined by the sky under which they 
live and the horizon by which they are circum- 
scribed ? 

Picture, if you can, a jagged line of shore, 
with mighty cliffs lifting themselves above the 
gray waste of sea, the scarps and mountains 
broken and bare, the crumbling boulders fretted 
with the furious lashings of storm-waves which 
have beaten in with dreadful monotony since 
the very beginnings of time. Then think of 
that sea stretched far, far out until its restless 
infinitude becomes one with the sky of wind- 
driven cloud and melting, twisting skeins of 
streaming rain. And see the country behind, 
rocky, worn, and bare, swept with the storm and 
soaked with rain. And farther back still the 
tall mountains rise, their sides breasting the 
tempest, their tops enshrouded with fog which 



4 SHAMROCK-LAND 

clings to the layer of wet snow. And think of 
the bleak winters of this far northern land, 
with short gray days and long, long nights of 
gloom. 

Then think of him and of her who dwell 
within that stocky gray hut of stone at the base 
of the cliff or in a hollow on the mountain side, 
bending low over the peat-fire, dreaming and 
crooning to the sound of the storm which howls 
around the eaves of thatch or dashes in gusts 
down the chimney and scatters the turf-embers 
about the hearth. And when at last the gray 
dawn comes, see them go quietly out and stand 
on the rocky hillside and gaze across the check- 
ered wind-swept fields. 

Ah! what wonder that a soul, dwelling thus 
in the shadow of storm, should drink in some- 
thing of its strife, and take unto itself a portion 
of its energy and unrest! And who but can 
see, as an Irishman has recently pointed out, 
that the sons who have drunken terror and 
hatred of the sea with their mother's milk should 
have gotten into their blood "some of its salt 
bitterness, its mystery and melancholy," and 
that the race upon the shore, though with sun- 
shine hidden in the heart, should wear ever a 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 5 

quiver upon the lip, and dwell always upon the 
very borderland of tears ? 

We passed Glandore Harbor and Ross Car- 
bery Bay, and old Galley Head, dripping and 
damp. Then came Clonakilty, and Seven Heads 
and Courtmacsherry Bay, and the Old Head 
of Kinsale, with lights ablaze, projecting far 
out into the waves. Then the signals from our 
ship, — red and blue and green, — and rapidly 
passing lights upon the shore. An old Irish- 
man, square-jawed, black-haired, blue-eyed, 
stood for a long time with his hand upon the 
rail weeping silently. His boyhood had been 
spent upon one of those rocky hillsides in the 
distance, under whose stones lay buried the 
bones of the old ones he had long ago parted 
from at the lowly cabin door. He had come 
back at last to gather a sprig of shamrock from 
their graves. 

We sailed along the coast whose giant cliffs 
reeked with greenness. Sometimes far in the 
distance, along some mountain slope, we saw 
white stone cottages sprinkled about; and as 
we passed nearer we could discern through the 
fog a network of gray stone fences which check- 
ered the smooth grassy hills, dividing pasture 



6 SHAMROCK-LAND 

from pasture, and separating sheepwalk from 
sheepwalk. At nine o'clock the Irish twilight 
gave way to darkness filled with fog and rain. 

At midnight we reached the mouth of Queens- 
town Harbor. A tender came alongside our 
vessel, lashed to her sides, and began to take 
on the passengers and the mail. The first genu- 
ine product of Ireland which I saw at close 
range in Irish territory was an old man with 
turned-up coat collar, greasy vest, heavy brogan 
shoes, and stove-in derby hat, selling pink and 
green newspapers to the passengers at a penny 
apiece. When he first stepped upon the gang- 
plank he commenced vociferously to shout his 
wares: "The Cor-r-k Examiner! The gra-a-te 
newspaper! All the news of the worruld! Jist 
wan pinny apiece !" He had come in so sud- 
denly upon us, and his appearance was so lu- 
dicrous that it seemed but natural he should 
have aroused all the pent-up facetiousness of a 
shipload of people. They plied him with all 
kinds of foolish questions, offered absurd trades, 
and made him the butt of innumerable jokes 
and jests. But he was used, it seemed, to such 
experiences. With a smile upon his face that 
increased into a chuckle, then into a roar, as he 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 7 

jostled those in his way, he scored every point 
against a shipful of antagonists. In measuring 
wit against this old son of Erin one might as 
well have been opposing Gibraltar with a blun- 
derbuss. Blackguarding and bantering was his 
profession, newspaper selling only a pleasant 
avocation. 

We steamed five miles north into Queenstown 
Harbor, our course for some distance being 
almost overhung with hills that seemed to show 
a touch of greenness in the semi-darkness. One 
old Irishman on board, coming back to the 
mother country on a visit after a residence of 
thirty years in the United States, was fired with 
enthusiasm at the sight of the old hills. The 
Yankee twang left him. Every sentence he 
uttered was in the richest Kilkenny brogue. 
Pointing proudly to the hills on each side of the 
rapidly-moving little tender, he said between 
his teeth: "There's enough cannon under them 
hills to blow ye all to flinders! We could sink 
ivery ship in th' Yankee navy into Davy Jones' 
locker in tin minutes by th' clock. Glory be 
to God!" 

A priest was standing by in the darkness and 
heard the remark. "Ah! Dinnis, and did ye 



8 SHAMROCK-LAND 

forget the ward fight in Pittsburg lahst year and 
ye bearing the great brass American eagle in 
front of the parade ? Blow the Yankees to 
flinders, is it? Ah! Dinnis! Dinnis!" The old 
fellow grinned and turned shamefacedly away, 
but there were those in the crowd who found 
it easy to forgive him for thus forgetting himself 
in the shadow of the old home hills. 

When we disembarked from the little steamer 
a curious crowd of men and boys, packed closely 
about the gang-plank, eyed us with unending 
curiosity. But their mute inquisitiveness was 
returned in kind by one member of our party at 
least, for they could not have given the Ameri- 
cans a more careful scrutiny than I gave them. 
They were proper objects of study. Before 
going into the custom house I made it a point to 
go up and engage in conversation with a rather 
strangely dressed youth of eighteen or twenty 
years of age. The light of his piercing gray eye 
and the round rich brogue remained with more 
vividness in my memory than any other impres- 
sion of the night. He was versed in everything 
of local import, and he imparted information 
with lightning-like rapidity. 

In the custom house the usual formalities were 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 9 

observed. The officers, though stolid and me- 
chanical in the discharge of their duties, pos- 
sessed that one characteristic of the Irish public 
servant — kindness. 

Down an ancient street, facing the water, 
flickering lights revealed the door of a hostelry. 
Assigned a room by a woman clerk, and led 
circuitously thereto by a porter in livery, I was 
soon buried in a wilderness of feathers and lost 
in downy dreams. 

The white sunshine, filtering through the 
branches of a gnarled old elm-tree and falling 
across the window-sill upon the wall at my head, 
awakened me to the fact that it was morning in 
Ireland! While dressing I looked out of the 
window into a little court or yard enclosed with 
a great stone wall, gray with age, and surmounted 
with pickets of rusting iron. A cat with two 
kittens played in the sunshine, and a string of 
geese filed slowly past the iron gate. A little 
cart, drawn by a brown donkey, and driven by a 
boy with breeches extending half-way from his 
knees to his ankles, went slowly up a sunny 
lane. In the far distance I heard the hoarse 
whistles of steamers, and nearer at hand the sub- 
dued sound of movement in the streets outside. 



io SHAMROCK-LAND 

In the dining-room a waiter with a quizzical 
Hibernian face served me with a pot of hot 
cocoa and mutton chops. Then I went out 
into the street. The day was clear and warm. 
The rich June sunshine streamed down upon 
the harbor shut in with smooth green hills. 
Sails glistened in the distance. The whole 
wide landscape dazzled one with its richness 
and splendor. White roads wound up the slop- 
ing hills in the distance. Old castles, gray with 
age, lay half buried in the rich shade of trees 
gnarled and bent with age. 

Queenstown is built upon the hillside in ter- 
races, its buildings gleaming like variegated 
porcelain in full exposure to the southern sun. 
The harbor is naturally one of the most beauti- 
ful in the world, and the surroundings are rich 
with history extending back to the earliest dawn 
of Celtic life. The town itself was known as 
'The Cove of Cork" until 1849, wnen i ts name 
was changed to Queenstown in honor of a visit 
paid it in that year by the Queen. Its popula- 
tion is said to be about twelve thousand. I was 
told that the immediate town is not an ancient 
one, as towns go in Ireland, but it presents an 
ancient appearance to a traveler fresh from 




o 



MRS! GLIMPSES OF IRELAND n 

the west. John Wesley either visited or passed 
through Queenstown, or Cove, in 1752, and he 
recorded that "there was nothing to be bought 
there — neither flesh, nor fish, nor butter, nor 
cheese, so I was obliged to be well contented 
with some eggs and bread." But since his 
day a substantial little city with every modern 
convenience for the traveler has been built. 
Though many ancient castles and forts adorned 
the hills centuries before this time, the town 
itself is a product of the activities first in- 
duced by the American Revolution, and con- 
tinued by the departure of the emigrant vessels 
which for the past three-quarters of a century 
have been draining the richest life-blood from 
Ireland. Emigration from Ireland received its 
first great impetus at the time of the potato 
famine in central, southern, and western Ireland, 
about 1846, and has continued to this day. 
Two or three times a week vessels sail away 
from Cork Harbor, bearing the best of what is 
left in the old island after six decades of unre- 
mitting exodus. The population of the island 
has been reduced from more than eight million 
in 1845 t0 a little over f° ur million in 1901, the 
time of the last census. Throughout Ireland 



12 SHAMROCK-LAND 

those who are left behind speak of Queenstown 
with subdued voices and sighs. It is safe to 
say that there are not a dozen families in the 
island who have not at some time lost a brother 
or a sister or a child or a relative or a friend 
through this port of tears. 

I walked about the little city and observed 
its strange sights. The houses were stolid and 
squatty and strong, built of stone or stucco, 
and, outside of the immediate town, were covered 
with straw or thatch. The trees even were 
gnarled, and bent, and old, and furnished the 
densest shade. The grass, luscious and flourish- 
ing, covered every portion of the land, except 
the bare rocks, with a smooth and velvety green. 

I wondered as I strolled along, immersed as I 
was in a whirlpool of unusualness, whether 
traveler ever entered a strange land with the 
curiosity and interest with which I entered Ire- 
land. Every rook that croaked and cawed from 
beetling chimney-top engaged my attention; and 
every ragged boy on his way to school was a 
source of unending wonder and amusement. 

Upon the corner of a street I saw my first 
jaunting-car. It was a two-wheeled vehicle, 
with a seat for the driver in the front and two 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 13 

other seats, back to back, with footboards hung 
over the wheels, for passengers. When there is 
but one passenger the driver sits over the oppo- 
site wheel to balance him. The driver of the 
car which stood before me came up and en- 
gaged me in conversation, and suggested that 
I take a "dhrive" with him. I allowed him to 
argue his case at full length, now and then 
putting in a word to get him more thoroughly 
into his subject. He told me of the many 
sights which were to be seen around the harbor. 
There were ancient castles along the way that 
fairly reeked with the history of bloodshed and 
cruelty in early feudal days. And there were 
stones and crosses that had been erected at a 
time when Ireland was covered with woods and 
harassed with wild animals. Down at the 
eastern end of the harbor was Rostellan Castle, 
the ancient home of the O'Briens, and near by 
the site of the castle of the Fitzgeralds, the an- 
cient seneschals of Imokilly. Here also was to 
be found a "cromlech," or collection of crudely- 
shapen rough stones upon which the Druids are 
supposed to have sacrificed human victims. And 
at Castle Mary, near by, was another cromlech 
of "grate beauty." Would I care to see these 



i 4 SHAMROCK-LAND 

things ? Over there south of us near old Agha- 
marta Castle was Drake's Pool, which sheltered 
Sir Francis Drake "long years ago," when he 
was pursued by the cruel Spaniards. And up at 
Black Rock Castle on the River Lee, William 
Penn embarked for America. Ah! I should stay 
at Queenstown a long time and take a ride on a 
jaunting-" cyar" every day. Down at Cloyne, 
three miles east of the harbor was an "ould, 
ould village strate," upon which was a cathedral 
built in the thirteenth "cintury," and a round 
tower, a hundred feet in height, built so long 
ago that no one knew what it was built for any- 
way. And oh! there was the grave of Rev. 
Charles Wolfe, the author of "The Burial of 
Sir John Moore," lying up there "jist over th* 
hill in th' burial-ground of the ould ruined 
chur-rch of Clonmel." Had I not read the 
poem, 

" Not a dhrum was hearrud, not a funeral note " ? 

Other jaunting-car drivers came up, each 
seeking with his eloquence to persuade me to 
go for a drive. "Jist look at this hor-r-se!" 
said one of them. "Ah!" said another, "the 
cyar-springs is what counts." His "cyar" was 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 15 

as smooth as an "owtomobile." It was rather 
painful to have to make a selection from this 
list of contestants and to see the look of dis- 
appointment upon the faces of those who were 
rejected, but after I had made up my mind one 
of the disappointed ones took me aside and said, 
"I feel sorry for ye, sorry indade. I hope ye'll 
get back home aloive. Jist think of it! But 
misshtakes will occur. Hiven help you, sir, 
Hiven help you!" 

One cannot forget the enchantment of a trip 
on a swiftly-moving jaunting-car around Cork 
Harbor. A tender beauty hangs over the whole 
wide expanse of earth and sea; and the thoughts 
that come to one as, flying over the white roads, 
he feels in his face the fresh winds from the 
ocean, and looks upon white sail, dank meadow, 
thatched cottage, and crumbling castle wall, can- 
not in human language be explained or expressed. 

When leaving Queenstown, I determined to go 
to Cork by train rather than by boat up the river 
Lee. When I reported at my hotel to make a 
settlement I found that my luggage had already 
been taken to the station with that of some ship 
acquaintances of mine who were leaving for 
Cork. The hotel people had thought that I was 



16 SHAMROCK-LAND 

a member of the party. I had not a moment to 
spare, so I rushed into the station and called 
for a ticket to Cork. "What clahss?" asked 
the ticket agent. While I was trying to deter- 
mine what I wanted an official standing by told 
me that my friends had purchased second-class 
tickets and had gone through the gates. I also 
bought a second-class ticket and hurried into 
the sheds where I found a boy with my baggage 
standing at the door of a compartment in a 
little railway coach where my acquaintances 
had already seated themselves. They had per- 
suaded the train officials to hold the train fully 
five minutes for me! Such things can occur 
only in Ireland where system always gives way 
to courtesy and kindness. 

I was locked into a compartment with a Balti- 
more man, two American (former Irish) Catholic 
priests, and a young Irish girl with blue eyes, 
bright face, and coal-black hair. The priests 
were on a summer visit to the old home, the 
Baltimore man was getting a glimpse of Ireland 
on his way to Liverpool, and the young girl was 
going with her basket to Cork. I watched the 
expression of this typical Celtic face as we 
talked of America and drew comparisons. I 




< 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 17 

afterwards thought that perhaps the intense in- 
terest which she betrayed in what we said about 
America was due to some hidden hope in her 
heart that some day she too might go down to 
the ship and follow the thousands she had seen 
depart for homes beyond the Atlantic. 

In Ireland one may travel first, second, or 
third class, as he may elect. The first class 
charges are about the Pullman rates in the 
United States, the second class a little less than 
our regular rates, and third class considerably 
less. If one wishes to be alone when in Ire- 
land he should travel first class. If he wishes 
to see Ireland and the Irish people as they are 
he should travel second and sometimes even 
third class. What he sees and hears in third 
class carriages will more than repay him for the 
discomforts of the ride. In England the vast 
majority of the people travel third class. In 
Ireland and in France, if one is looking simply 
for comfort, he should not travel that way. 

Soon after our little train had squealed in 
announcing its departure from Queenstown we 
were out in the green fields speeding northwest- 
ward towards the city of Cork. A rich country 
lay about us. The fields did not appear to have 



1 8 SHAMROCK-LAND 

that intensive cultivation which one sees in 
England, or France, or Holland, except in small 
garden patches here and there, but there was 
luxuriancy visible everywhere. The meadows 
and pastures were exquisite with their thick, 
black-green growth of hay and grass. The fat- 
test of cattle and sheep grazed on the sloping 
hillsides. Wild flowers bloomed along the roads 
and about the little village greens; old stone 
walls enclosed every white limestone road, and 
divided every hillside into little lots and fields. 
Now and then some old building, a landmark, 
hoary with age, came into view; and we often 
caught glimpses of the river Lee, gleaming 
through some dense grove, and flashing back 
the rays of the June sun. Old Black Rock 
Castle, in smooth gray stone, hung over the 
river, standing waist-deep in its waves. And 
along the banks were stone walls and smooth 
white roads. 

We passed solidly built cottages, or cabins, 
of the peasantry, all of stone or a kind of mud 
or stucco, whitewashed, without porches or 
verandahs, with roofs of straw or thatch from 
six inches to a foot in thickness. Around the 
primitive doorways, worn smooth with the patter 




Round Tower and Village Street in Cloyne, near Cork Harbor. 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 19 

of little Irish feet, were goats and pigs and 
chickens, and sometimes long strings of geese. 
These sights flew by us in bewildering con- 
fusion all along the course of the twelve 
delightful miles between Queenstown and 
Cork. 

Upon our arrival in Cork I hastened out of 
the little train and looked about me. The first 
thing that I saw was a railway freight yard 
filled with numberless little black freight cars, 
standing upon spoked wheels, without roofs, 
capacity from seven to nine tons, a type of the 
freight car that does the business of the British 
Isles. 

I sat beside the driver of the 'bus as we drove 
into the city. He pointed out to me the prin- 
cipal buildings as we passed them, and talked 
volubly upon such things as were connected 
with the history of the old Ireland. We passed 
up King Street, thence along St. Patrick's quay 
until we came to St. Patrick's bridge just south 
of St. Patrick's Place and at the foot of St. 
Patrick's hill; after crossing St. Patrick's bridge 
we drove into St. Patrick's Street, the leading 
thoroughfare of the city, and halted in front of 
the hotel — by some outrageous and sacrilegious 



20 SHAMROCK-LAND 

blunder called something else instead of "St. 
Patrick's." 

St. Patrick has a strong hold upon Ireland. 
It would indeed be interesting to know just how 
many churches, chapels, cathedrals, streets, 
bridges, schools, friaries, chantries, orphanages, 
convents, priories, parks, monasteries, driveways, 
and reformatories, scattered over the country 
from Kerry to the Giant's Causeway, bear to- 
day the name of Ireland's patron saint. 

But perhaps St. Patrick has a good claim to 
the affections of the Irish people. He it was 
who gave them their religion and laid the foun- 
dation of a church life which for the undying 
loyalty of its constituents has had no parallel 
in history. 

The early history of Ireland, known to the 
Romans as Hibernia, is buried in obscurity. 
The ancient Hibernians were a mixed race, but 
prevailingly Celtic. Among the few things that 
the modern historian knows about these people 
is that they were divided into tribes ruled 
by petty tyrants, proud, rapacious, and war- 
like, who kept the island in perpetual strife. 
Their religion was that of the Druids, with 
human sacrifices, the ruins of whose altars 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 21 

may be found in many parts of the island 
to-day. 

Patrick, or Patricius, most probably a native 
of Scotland, or of Gaul, was captured about the 
year 430 a.d., and taken to Ireland where he 
was sold as a slave. Here he served his master 
for six years as a shepherd, and learned to love 
the Irish people. Escaping from the country, 
he fled into France or England and became a 
hard student for several years. About the year 
440 he returned to Ireland and labored as a 
missionary of Christianity until March 17, 493, 
when he died and was buried at Downpatrick, 
or Gabhul, as it was sometimes called, an an- 
cient town in county Down, twenty-six miles 
south of the modern commercial city of Belfast. 
Here he had held his first mission, gained his 
first converts, and spent his declining years. 
But his missionary journeys had extended to the 
remotest portions of the island, and his con- 
verts had been taken from the most warlike 
tribes. 

A vast mass of tradition has grown up during 
the course of the centuries around the name of 
St. Patrick, much of which is interesting as folk- 
lore though vague and unreliable as history. 



22 SHAMROCK-LAND 

There are those to-day who are actually be- 
ginning to doubt the reality of that great achieve- 
ment ascribed to him, and expressed so forcibly 
in the old Irish song: 

"Upon the top of a tall green hill 
St. Patrick preached a sarmint, 
He drove the frogs into the bogs, 
And banished all the varmint!" 

But no one doubts that Patrick has an abiding 
place in history, and that he was a man of lofty 
character and untiring zeal. At his death he 
left Ireland so strongly rooted in the Christian 
faith that for many centuries the island was the 
center of Christian learning and piety for all 
western Europe. It is scarcely a wonder that 
the Irish people, of that intense, emotional 
Celtic temperament, should have become at- 
tached to the memory of a man who turned their 
ancestors from Druidism to Christianity. 

Returning to our hotel in the heart of Cork, 
on Patrick Street: I went in and registered, or, 
at least, the young lady "dark" according to 
custom, took my name and asked me some 
questions as to my wants. She then handed me 
a card containing the number of my room and 
delivered to me a key of the St. Patrick pattern, 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 23 

made of iron, a fac-simile of the kind our 
Colonial great-grandmothers used to lock their 
smoke-houses with a century and a half ago. 
There was no tag attached to the key for its 
identification in case it should be carried off 
and lost, but I thought perhaps the pretty 
young "dark" felt there was little danger of 
this since I had no wheelbarrow with my lug- 
gage. 

The porter grasped a piece of my baggage in 
each hand and beckoned me to follow him. 
There was no elevator, or "lift," as they call it, 
in the hotel, so we passed around through a 
moldy passageway, went up a long and tortu- 
ous flight of steps, then across the hall, then 
down a short flight of steps, then around a corner, 
then a sharp turn to the left, and three steps up, 
and behold! we had reached our destination. 
Such is Ireland! 

I was told some time after this when sojourn- 
ing in Dublin that the hotel at which I stopped 
while in Cork was not the best one in the city. 
I do not doubt that the statement was true, 
though I did not know it at the time. But I 
did not go to Ireland to enjoy luxuries, but 
rather to live for a while the actual life of the 



24 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Irish people. This hotel certainly afforded me 
the means for doing that. 

There are some excellent hotels in Ireland. 
Dublin, Belfast, and all the more prominent 
tourist resorts are provided with hostelries con- 
taining all modern conveniences and comforts. 
But in the Irish country-town hotel there are 
few modern conveniences. Bath rooms are few 
and primitive beyond belief. Many of the 
smaller hotels are lighted with oil lamps or even 
with the old-fashioned tallow candles. One 
finds it difficult to have a fire kindled in one's 
room, though it is often as cold and damp in 
Ireland in midsummer as it is in our country in 
April and November. 

And naturally the service is slow. When the 
young lady clerk sends the porter to your room 
for information as *to what you wish for break- 
fast, you send word back that you would like to 
have a steak, some Irish bacon, potatoes, scram- 
bled eggs on toast, and cocoa. Then you wash, 
shave yourself (for there are few barbers in Ire- 
land), dress in a leisurely manner, find your 
way down through labyrinthian windings to the 
street level, take a walk about town, make some 
purchases of souvenirs, talk with country peas- 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 25 

ants upon the street corners, come back to the 
hotel office, write a letter or two, send off a batch 
of souvenir post-cards, then repair to the dining- 
room and open the morning newspaper and be- 
gin to search therein for news. Continue this 
search long enough and the good-natured waiter 
will break into your labors with as good a break- 
fast as any one could wish. The Irish pride 
themselves upon their mutton, beef, and butter. 
And all kinds of fowl may be had for a pittance. 
There will be no pies upon the table, for the 
Irish people do not care greatly for "sweets," 
but no breakfast table is complete without a 
big bowl of bitter orange marmalade, an excel- 
lent appetizer and digestant. 

I strolled about the streets of the old city of 
Cork throughout the first evening of my arrival 
there. To one who is accustomed to American 
cities with their newness and bustle, Cork pre- 
sents an ancient and time-worn appearance. 
The goods in the shops are peculiarly arranged, 
and the windows are strangely dressed. Every- 
thing savors of the long distant past. 

I met a ragged boy selling pink newspapers. 
I bought one and eagerly searched its pages 
for some bit of American news. But I was dis- 



26 SHAMROCK-LAND 

appointed. The newspapers of Cork, though 
fairly good as Irish newspapers go, are rather 
gloomy sheets, the quality of paper being poor 
and the print bad. And they are unusually 
bare of news. The first page of the paper, 
where display heads are wont to be made in 
American papers, contains nothing but long, 
legal notices, verbatim political and parliamen- 
tary speeches and some unattractive advertise- 
ments. The "news" is at length discovered 
hidden away under one-line heads in the middle 
of the paper. There are no display heads of 
any kind, not even over the most important 
news, and, with the exception of minute ac- 
counts of deaths, funerals, wakes and " League" 
meetings, local happenings appear to be dis- 
regarded. The Irish press at this time, in me- 
chanical make-up and in the treatment of news, 
is about where the American press was six or 
seven decades ago. One can easily verify this 
by comparing the average newspaper of Cork, 
Limerick, or Dublin with the files of American 
newspapers to be found in any well-equipped 
public library. An Irishman will tell you that 
what we might term the primitive appearance 
of the Irish newspaper is due to the conserva- 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 



27 



tism of the Irish people. This to a certain 
extent is true; for however dull the Irish news- 
paper may be, it is entirely free from a certain 
kind of sensationalism which is one of the 
gravest defects of the average American news- 
paper. 

There are barracks in Cork where large num- 
bers of soldiers are stationed. These men in 
uniform may be seen at all hours of the day, 
singly, in pairs, or in groups, walking upon the 
streets, smoking, chatting with each other, and 
ogling the girls who may generally be found in 
large numbers somewhere along the soldiers' 
usual route. Many of the soldiers belong to 
Scotch regiments, and right proudly do they 
wear their kilts and plaids, with bare knees 
made black by the rough Irish weather. 

It was ten o'clock in the evening when I re- 
turned to the hotel, but it was still light. Cork, 
in Southern Ireland, is situated near the 52d 
parallel on a latitude with the southern portion 
of bleak Labrador in North America. The lati- 
tude of the Giant's Causeway, in North Ireland, 
is the same as that of Southern Alaska. In 
midsummer the nights in Ireland are so short 
that the flush of evening has hardly faded from 



28 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the western sky before the morning light begins 
to steal into the east. In the misty twilight I 
saw a steamer acquaintance, standing with his 
hands behind his back, looking up St. Patrick's 
Street toward America, the very picture of 
abject lonesomeness and homesickness. As I 
walked up he turned to me and said: "Old 
friend, I have been waiting here three hours for 
night to come. I want to go to bed. I know 
all this is picturesque enough, and all that, but, 
well — Baltimore for me!" 

After I had retired to my little stuffy room 
and blown out the light I heard a brass band 
pass down the street with clatter and cry. It 
was the winding up of some big holiday athletic 
event. And after the streets had become quiet 
I thought I heard the strains of some gentler 
music. I crept to my window and listened. 
Far away, somewhere out in the darkness, some 
one was strumming a guitar, and now and then 
I heard snatches of a song which a clear Irish 
voice was singing: 

"When first I saw sweet Peggy, 
'Twas on a market day; 
A low-back car she drove, and sat 
Upon a truss of hay; 



FIRST GLIMPSES OF IRELAND 29 

And when that hay was blooming grass, 

And filled with flowers of spring, 
No flower was there that could compare 

With the blooming girl I sing." 



CHAPTER II 

OLD CORK AND THE CASTLE OF BLARNEY 

When I arose from the breakfast table I was 
informed that a jaunting-car awaited me at the 
hotel door. Equipped with camera and rain- 
coat (the two indispensables in Ireland) I took 
my seat over a wheel opposite the typical Hiber- 
nian who had agreed to drive me out to Blarney 
where I might see the ancient castle and kiss, if 
I wished, the Blarney Stone. 

We started off with a brisk trot down the old 
city's street. All about us was Ireland. Even 
here in the heart of Cork one could see those 
marks which distinguish the Isle of Erin from 
the rest of the world. Jaunting-cars moved 
hither and thither through the busy morning 
crowd; stout old women with short skirts, heavy 
shoes, and somber black shawls drawn over their 
heads, stood in and about the alley entrances; 
ragged, barefoot boys shouted green-tinted news- 
papers at "a pinny apiece"; and little low-back 

donkey-cars from far out in the country, loaded 

3 o 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 



3i 



down with peat-turf, or butter, or gooseberries, 
crawled slowly along towards the market-place. 

Now and then snatches of rich Irish brogue 
reached me where I sat perched upon my 
jaunting-car. The faces in the street were un- 
mistakably characteristic of Erin; and down an 
alley which opened upon our street I caught a 
hurried glimpse of children playing upon the 
bare cobble-stones, with here and there a lean 
cat or a stray dog that bore his share of the 
penuriousness of his surroundings. Even the 
air was Irish; and the whole scene about us was 
such as Hibernia alone can furnish. 

Cork is a city which delights the traveler's 
heart. With the exception of Dublin, the capi- 
tal, there is no other Irish city which so fully 
reveals the marks of "the old Ireland." Within 
it and about it are the evidences of centuries of 
Celtic life. It is an ancient city. Its history 
extends so far back into the past that the anti- 
quarian studying its beginnings finds his chief 
difficulty in separating fact from legend, truth 
from a veritable wilderness of tradition and folk- 
lore which has grown up through the centuries. 

It is said, however, and possibly with truth, 
that good St. Finn Barr, monk and scholar, 



32 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



established his cell in a little mound on the bank 
of the river Lee about the year 650 a.d., and 
that to him, on account of his piety and learning, 
flocked monks from every part of the newly 
awakened Ireland to receive instruction at his 
school. Thus a settlement was made, and a 
city grew up. For some centuries its history 
was unmarked with event of interest save now 
and then a bloody raid from a native chieftain; 
but records show that along in the eighth and 
ninth centuries the Danes, who in those transi- 
tional times were ubiquitous in western Europe, 
frequently sailed up the river Lee, leaped forth 
from their vessels with fire and sword, plundered 
the villagers shamefully, striking down such as 
opposed them, and as hastily disappeared, taking 
with them vast quantities of wool and butter and 
other Irish products. Gradually, however, these 
fierce northerners began to be more gentle in 
their dealings, and they came upon fairer terms. 
They even established trading-places along the 
Lee, as they had done in other parts of Ireland 
and in England; and at length they became so 
friendly with the Irish that about a half century 
before the Norman Conquest, or, to be exact, in 
the year 1020, they laid the foundations of what 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 33 

they determined should be a permanent city on 
a rich green island in the river Lee near St. Finn 
Barr's old settlement. This place the Celtic 
Erse-speaking Irish called "Corcach," which 
literally means a marshy place. Subsequently 
this bisyllabic guttural was Anglicized into 
" Cork," but the Gaelic tongue has never 
accepted the change. 

The city grew rapidly in the Middle Ages, and 
was for many centuries as well known to con- 
tinental Europe as Dublin or Edinburgh. It 
would take a volume to tell fully of its checkered 
and bloody history. Yet we find Cork at the 
summit of its prosperity during the early days 
of the nineteenth century. Its decline in popu- 
lation has dated from the great exodus from 
Ireland which began in the forties. In 1845 the 
population of Cork and environs was possibly 
more than a hundred thousand. In 1861 there 
were eighty thousand in the municipality. The 
census of 1901 shows a population of 75,978. 

Still there is much bustle in an Irish way 
about the old city, and as a seaport it still ranks 
well — sending forth vast quantities of fat cattle, 
wool, bacon, and Tipperary butter to the mar- 
kets of England and the continent. It also has 



34 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



many churches, certainly one first-class institu- 
tion of learning, and a number of well-built 
commercial streets and splendid stone quays. 

As we drove along the old streets that sunny 
June morning a glamour seemed to hang over the 
ancient settlement. Everything seemed to tell 
of the things of the long ago. Turning here and 
there, we at length crossed a bridge into that 
portion of the city north of the river, and after 
a few more turns in picturesque lanes we arrived 
at some steep steps leading up from the street 
to a quiet, melancholy-looking graveyard which 
surrounded an old church crowned with a square 
black tower of stone. Tall grass and wild 
flowers grew amid the graves. Off in the west, 
beyond the city's limits, lay the rich valley of 
the river Lee. The summer breeze which blew 
in our faces brought us the odor of fresh earth, 
blooming wild-flowers, and new-mown hay. 
The church was old St. Anne's, and — "Hush, 
hush," said my driver, "it is the hour! Listen 
to the Shandon Bells!" And then the bells in 
the black tower began their strange, gentle 
chimes. So perfectly did the melancholy music 
fit in with the beauty, the quiet, and the summer 
bloom, that it was not hard to see how their 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 



Mardvke Walk — Cork. 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 35 

strains might have inspired an Irishman to pro- 
duce one of the sweetest poems of English liter- 
ature. My driver was quiet for a moment after 
the bells had ceased to chime, and when he 
looked up there was a tear in his eye. Then he 
recited for me in his full rich brogue the exquisite 
verses which had been written by Father Prout, 
whose bones lay there at our feet in the shadow 
of the old black tower where, still resonant with 
the song that had gone forth, swung 

THE SHANDON BELLS 

With deep affection 
And recollection 

I often think of 
Those Shandon bells, 
Whose sounds so wild would 
In the days of childhood 
Fling round my cradle 
Their magic spells. 

On this I ponder 
Where'er I wander, 

And thus grow fonder, 
Sweet Cork, of thee — 
With thy bells of Shandon, 
That sound so grand on 

The pleasant waters 
Of the river Lee. 



36 SHAMROCK-LAND 

When we drove away from the old church we 
turned suddenly into a street where we came 
face to face with a sight that made me wonder 
whether indeed this was one of the much talked- 
of "congested districts " of Ireland. It was 
fairly teeming with inhabitants. There ap- 
peared to be little or no traffic in the street, 
with the exception of a donkey-car or two 
trading about the doors, but a number of old 
men, some of extreme age, hobbled along upon 
their sticks or sat in chairs outside the doors in 
the morning sunshine. And there were many 
women to be seen, young, middle-aged, and old, 
standing in or about the doorways or in groups 
on the corners; and the whole street, particu- 
larly at the alley entrances, swarmed with chil- 
dren of every age, size, garb, complexion, and 
state of griminess. 

When our jaunting-car came upon the scene 
with what seemed to them a tourist upon it, 
there was one concerted movement in our direc- 
tion. As an experiment I threw a half-penny 
into a crowd of boys. There ensued a wild 
scramble which attracted the attention of others 
in the street and alleys near by, and in about a 
minute we had a following whose picturesque- 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 



37 



ness and marvelousness of dress and expression 
of countenance our language has no words 
adequately to describe. Some of the boys ap- 
peared just to have come from ash barrels, and 
others showed signs of having been scouring the 
gutters with their backs and heads; and the 
costumes of some of them would have made a 
study for an artist. One little fellow with white, 
flat face and a ragged cap upon the top of his 
big round head had his visage literally bisected 
with a heavy streak of dirt which extended from 
the corners of his mouth unto and even behind 
his ears; and another black-haired boy, without 
any head-covering, who I thought for the pre- 
carious manner in which he was dressed was 
quite too active in his scramble for pennies, was 
so scantily clothed that the accidental breakage 
of a frayed string upon the shoulder would have 
left him, there in the street, in a condition 
approximating that in which he first made his 
appearance in the world. 

As I flung a penny here or there in the crowd 
they rushed together and piled upon each other 
until they formed a mound-like mass of writhing 
and squirming humanity out of which often bare 
legs, crowned with rusty-looking soles and wide- 



38 SHAMROCK-LAND 

apart toes, extended high into the air. And it 
was all accompanied with the most intense ear- 
nestness. So eager and excited did the little 
fellows become in their pursuit of the coins that 
after they had been told that the supply of 
copper upon the car had been exhausted, they 
stretched their legs to the utmost as they followed 
our vehicle, now traveling rapidly down the 
street to avoid them, with wild eyes and wide- 
open mouths, shouting, "Cop-p-e-r-r-s! Cop- 
p-e-r-r-s! Cop-p-e-r-r-s!" with all the power 
which their lungs could put forth. 

This sight alone, though it was abundantly 
supplemented by other experiences, was suffi- 
cient proof that the beggar is still in Ireland. 
Whatever force may have been expended in 
making efficient the work-house system of the 
old island, and however strong the sentiment 
against mendicancy may have developed among 
the Irish people, there are to-day in Ireland 
still a large number of those who get their entire 
living from unorganized charity. The only 
difference between these and the old times is 
that now the beggars are not so numerous and 
by no means so persistent as they once were. 
In olden days, say about the thirties or forties 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 39 

of the last century, when Ireland swarmed with 
a population such as a strictly agricultural 
country of its size could not well support, beg- 
gars in a manner controlled the traveling situa- 
tion. Many writers, but none more picturesquely 
than the Irish themselves, have related most 
ludicrous anecdotes of those interesting days. 

A traveler with an eye to the picturesque 
relates that on a trip through southern Ireland 
in the days when beggars were numerous he 
was sometimes fairly held up until his pocket 
had been relieved of its superfluous change. If 
he failed to show his liberality he was sometimes 
roundly abused; and if perchance he showed 
his temper at the importunities of the mendi- 
cants he was even in danger of personal violence. 

One day from his window in a south Irish 
inn, this traveler saw a well-dressed young man 
go up and knock loudly upon a door opening 
upon the street. At the sound of the noise a 
woman came out from somewhere and accosted 
him: "Do, dear, honorable, handsome, darlint 
young gintleman, bestow a ha'penny on a poor 
lone widdy with siven small starvin' little childer 
that haven't broke their fast this blissed day." 
The young man kept on knocking without notic- 



4 o SHAMROCK-LAND 

ing her. She continued : " God kape the stringth 
to your wrist to knock harder, sir, and the heart 
in ye to lave the little token of a ha'penny with 
the lone widdy and her siven fatherless childer." 
"I have no silver about me," said the young 
man with some impatience. "I did not ax ye 
for silver or goold, but jist for one lone ha'penny 
for the broken-hearted widdy and her siven poor 
little naked fatherless childer." The young man 
lost his temper. "I tell you, I have no ha'- 
pence!" he shouted at her. 

"Why, thin, bad luck to ye!" she hotly ex- 
claimed, setting her arms a-kimbo and looking 
a fury, "thin what the divil did ye bring me 
from my comfortable sate across the strate for, 
if ye had no money in yer pocket, — ye poor, 
ugly, miserable, half-starved, whey-faced gos- 
soon!" 

Happily, Ireland has recovered from the pov- 
erty of those days, and now the principal beggars 
are the ragged boys in the slums of the cities — 
a class of mendicants for whom the tourist is to 
some degree responsible — and the importunate 
souvenir-sellers at all of the leading tourist 
resorts. 

As our car speeded along through the alleys 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 41 

and streets, leaving the boys behind, we passed 
numerous low-back donkey-cars, loaded down 
with produce of one kind or another, on their 
way into the city. These little carts, without 
springs, and with only boards for seats, are 
much used by the Irish peasantry to-day. They 
are midway in point of evolution between the 
old low-back drag car — a kind of basket or 
box fastened to shafts whose ends were mere 
runners upon the ground — and the modern 
jaunting-car which is the public vehicle of 
Ireland. 

In getting out of the city we saw many other 
interesting sights suggestive of Ireland; but in 
making a sudden turn we came in full sight of 
the broad open face of the country. What a 
transformation! Behind us was a city, at best 
old-fashioned, dingy, timeworn — in front lay 
stretched out in the haze of a June day as fair 
a country as the sunshine ever fell upon. This 
is the paradox of Ireland — poverty and beauty 
going hand in hand. 

The drive from the suburbs of Cork to the 
village of Blarney is considered by many to be 
one of the most charming in the British Isles. 
On every side the green fields lay about us — 



42 SHAMROCK-LAND 

rolling, variegated, beautiful. There was no 
raggedness or uneven growth of copse, or weed, 
or briar; but every field was as smooth as velvet, 
with no extraneous growth except the myriads 
of minute sod-blossoms, and a larger growth of 
field daisy and red wild poppy that grew in the 
most obscure corners of the fields and upon the 
brink of the streams. 

Now and then we passed some old stone 
bridge, or remnant of a castle, or, perchance, 
an ancient marker at the turn of the highway. 
The road on each side was walled in with gray 
stone, out of the interstices of which grew stunted 
white-thorn and wild roses. In the meadows 
cattle and sheep grazed lazily, sometimes stand- 
ing half a knee deep in the sweet lush grass. 

My driver, being an Irishman, talked inces- 
santly of the country — its traditions, its people, 
its customs, and the landmarks which we passed. 
He knew all the cross-roads, and was acquainted 
with the occupant of every peasant's cottage. 
He could relate the history of every mansion of 
the "gintry" that we passed, and bring back to 
life many a scene of violence and bloodshed in 
the distant past. He knew of noted funerals 
and wakes over the dead; and of these and many 




i£ 



< 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 43 

other interesting things he talked to me on our 
ride to Blarney that day. 

Before I could realize that we had reached 
our journey's end my driver drew up his horse 
under the gnarled elms that shaded the street 
of the village of Blarney. Rows of white cot- 
tages lined the street. On one side was a long 
one-story building which for many years had 
been operated as a tweed mill. Here the fine 
wool grown on the surrounding meadows is 
converted into a handsome tweed which is much 
sought after by the tourist. The operatives of 
the mill lived in the houses which lined the 
village street. 

I paid a sixpence at the little gate-house 
buried in the shade, crossed a rustic bridge, and 
found myself within the broad shady grounds 
that surrounded old Blarney Castle. The an- 
cient building, like a mountain of gray stone, 
loomed up in front of me in poetic beauty. A 
few persons, apparently tourists, were strolling 
about the grounds; and a number of children 
were swinging under a tree. 

Within the door, or cavern-like entrance, of 
the castle, an old Irish woman had a stand 
where she kept for sale an elaborate assortment 



44 SHAMROCK-LAND 

of trinkets and souvenirs of Ireland. With 
genuine good nature she pointed out to me the 
portion of the castle which held the Blarney 
Stone, and after exacting of me the customary 
admission fee of a sixpence, she pointed me to 
the stairways that led above. 

Within the castle the air was damp and cool, 
and heavy with musty odors of the past. I 
groped my way up the great rambling stairways 
of stone, passing through dungeons, and cuddies, 
and strange old chambers, lighted only with a 
slit of sunshine which came mysteriously through 
the heavy walls of stone. More than once I 
strayed off from my proper course and lost my- 
self in some gloomy nook where it required little 
effort to imagine many a bloody tragedy had 
occurred in olden days. For many generations 
ago this castle was the storm-center of Ireland, 
and sometimes, they say, dead men were strewn 
in heaps along these grewsome stairways. 

At last I reached the top. The ancient roof 
had fallen in, but enough of the former coverings 
of the old pile remained to shut out the sunshine 
and the rain. The walls, immensely thick, fur- 
nished a good walk-way around the top of the 
building. From this vantage-ground I looked 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 45 

about me at the landscape. As far as eye could 
see there was a succession of green fields, and 
white roads, and ancient manors, and thatched 
cottages, and tiny lakes half-hidden by green 
patches of wood where grew the most densely 
foliaged trees. The scene was one of peculiar 
tenderness and peace, — a contrast indeed to 
some of the stormy times in the past history of 
this fortress. 

The castle was erected in the year 1446 by 
Cormac MacCarthy, bishop and mighty warrior, 
whose ancestors had been chieftains in Munster 
Ireland from a period long antecedent to the 
English invasion. He built the castle for a 
military stronghold, and here he quartered a 
large number of men, bold, quick, and watchful, 
who kept at bay many an invading and hostile 
army. 

Cormac's descendants, the Lords of Muskerry 
and Clancarty, retained possession of a large 
portion of the vast surrounding estate until the 
year 1689 when it was confiscated, and the last 
earl became an exile. In 1702 when the castle, 
village, mills, fairs, and customs of Blarney were 
"set up by cant," Sir Richard Pyne bought the 
entire estate of 1400 acres for the sum of £3000. 



46 SHAMROCK-LAND 

The following year he disposed of it to Sir 
James Jeffreys whose descendants or heirs held 
the property for several generations, if, indeed, 
they do not hold it to-day. 

The present owner of the estate, including the 
old castle, makes his home in a modern "castle" 
— as the homes of the gentry are called in 
Ireland — about half a mile from the ancient 
building. Here he lives in the seclusiveness and 
exclusiveness usual to the modern gentry of 
Ireland. Visitors and tourists seldom see or 
hear anything definite of these elusive aristocrats 
who bury themselves in the center of a park 
which is shut in from the highways by tall stone 
walls. 

Descendants of the original MacCarthy clan 
may be found working, as day-laborers, around 
the ruins of the castle where their forefathers 
ruled so long. Tradition has it that the Earl of 
Clancarty, who forfeited the castle at the time 
of the Revolution, cast all his plate into a certain 
part of Blarney Lake, near the castle, and that 
three of the MacCarthys inherit the secret of 
the hiding-place. When one of them dies he 
communicates the secret to another one of the 
family, and thus perpetuates the secret which is 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 47 

never to be openly revealed until a MacCarthy 
is again Lord of Blarney. 

Every step of ground within a mile of the 
castle is hallowed by legend. According to local 
report, which is faithfully believed by many, 
enchanted cows on midsummer nights dispute 
the pasture with those of the present possessor, 
and many an earthly bull has been worsted in 
the contest. And it is also said that fairy rings 
are upon the grass from early summer to the 
last week in harvest. 

Blarney Castle obtained its present popularity 
from a famous stone, still in the walls, around 
which clusters much of romance and supersti- 
tion. Tradition says that after Cormac Mac- 
Carthy had built this castle he chanced one day 
to save an old woman from drowning, and to 
show her gratitude the old woman offered 
Cormac a golden tongue which should have the 
power of fluent persuasiveness — a tongue that 
could influence men and women, friends and 
foes, as he willed. To get this power, however, 
Cormac must climb to the keep of the castle, let 
himself down in some difficult way, and kiss a 
certain stone in the walls situated about five feet 
below the gallery running around the top. It is 



48 SHAMROCK-LAND 

said the great warrior-churchman followed the 
old woman's directions with great minuteness, 
kissed the stone, and at once obtained all the 
persuasive eloquence which had been promised 
him. Soon the story was told throughout Ire- 
land. It went also to other countries and made 
Blarney one of the best known castles in the 
world. 

Walking around the top of the castle walls in 
the warm sunshine, I began to look for the 
noted stone, and at length found it held in place 
by two iron bands suspended from the very top 
of the stone battlements. A row of iron spikes 
has been placed on the top of the battlements 
above the stone to prevent foolhardy adventurers 
from attempting to kiss the stone by being let 
down over the walls by the heels as was the 
custom at one time to do. Now the pilgrim to 
this shrine of eloquence must get down on his 
knees, or lie flat down on the stones, bend his 
body at the waist and thrust his head and shoul- 
ders down about three feet through a square 
opening in the stones opposite the cornice, and 
in this position turn his neck and kiss the stone 
from the under side. An attendant with good 
muscles must be at hand to hold the heels of 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 

Blarney Castle, near Cork. 
The Stronghold of the McCarthys and the Shrine of Irish Wit. 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 



49 



the one who attempts to kiss the stone, else, by 
the law of gravitation, he will topple over and 
go through the hole to the green turf a hundred 
and twenty feet below. 

It is said that this stone (provided this is the 
genuine stone) formerly had a Latin inscription 
carved upon it: 

"Cormac MacCarthy fortis mi fieri 

FECIT, I446. " 

If true, time and multitudes of osculations have 
served to wear all the Latin away; for the glimpse 
which I got of the stone when I kissed it revealed 
it as being as smooth and as greasy-looking as if 
all Ireland had been kissing it for centuries. 

At the time when I was upon the top of the 
castle there were also present possibly a dozen 
persons, most of them tourists, looking around 
and speculating, as all visitors do, about the 
Blarney Stone. None of them had kissed it, 
owing to the difficulty and supposed danger of 
getting to it. After due examination I decided 
that the feat was not necessarily a dangerous 
one, so I bargained with a young man whose 
attire and accent showed that he was an Ameri- 
can, each agreeing to hold the heels of the other 



5 o SHAMROCK-LAND 

while he bent down through the square opening 
and kissed the stone. One or two other Ameri- 
cans came up and helped me hold this young 
man's heels while he went down to obtain the 
eloquence. I followed him with some degree 
of boldness, and then several others volunteered 
to try the experiment. One young New Yorker 
came forward enthusiastically and asked the 
fellows standing by to hold his feet. Just as he 
leaned over the square opening he happened to 
get a glimpse of ground below, when he suddenly 
decided that the whole thing was the rankest 
kind of superstition and that the stone was not 
worth kissing after all. 

Most of the visitors had gone down when I 
observed two handsome young ladies evidently 
seriously perplexed about something. Then I 
heard one of them say, "Oh, indeed, how 
anxious / am to kiss the stone!" The ladies 
were accompanied by a gentleman, a brother to 
one and a cousin to the other, as I afterwards 
learned, who was willing to oblige them, but he 
needed some one to help him hold the heels of 
the ladies as they bent over the dangerous open- 
ing. The young man from America was oblig- 
ing, so the rather more eager of the two young 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 51 

ladies soon swung down and kissed the stone. 
Her companion, a rather timid and modest- 
looking young girl, was more reluctant to accom- 
plish her hidden desires, and it was only after 
a great deal of persuasion that she consented to 
kiss the stone. But when she did yield she 
came up very red and very happy. 

Armed with tourist license (something about 
as vague and indefinite as poetic license), and 
feeling compelled to say something pleasant, I 
congratulated the young ladies upon their brav- 
ery, at the same time assuring them that it was 
my candid opinion none but Yankee girls would 
attempt the difficult task. 

With some amusement they assured me that 
they were not Americans, but were both natives 
of good county Cork. They had often visited 
Blarney, but this was the first time that they 
had ever attempted to kiss the Blarney Stone. 
The gentleman who accompanied the young 
ladies then formally introduced me to them, 
and we had an extended conversation upon 
many things Irish as we walked down the laby- 
rinthian stairway of stone and even after we had 
reached the grounds outside. Before I left them 
they had registered in my traveler's book, and 



52 SHAMROCK-LAND 

both had extended invitations to me to visit 
them in their homes. One of them lived on a 
residential street in Cork, and the other, her 
cousin, lived in a village some miles outside of 
the city. 

"Ah," said the fair young Corkian, "you 
should take tea to-morrow evening in our home 
in Cork, and then you may visit Delia's home 
where you will find the best cake to be had in 
south Ireland. And, indeed, it is the product 
of Delia's hands." 

It was ever afterwards a source of regret that 
circumstances did not allow me to go to Delia's 
home and eat some of that cake for which the 
girl had become so famous. 

Whatever one may find to say against the 
Irish, their splendid hospitality can never be 
impeached. It extends through all grades of 
society from the gentry to the lowliest peasants 
in houses of thatch. And it is great because it 
is so genuine. Sir Walter Scott visited Ireland 
in 1825, traveling all through the island. He 
remained several days at Cork and visited 
Blarney Castle. In writing to his friend Morritt 
he expressed himself as being greatly pleased 
with the Irish hospitality. Said he: "Indeed, it 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 53 

is impossible to conceive the extent of this virtue 
in all classes. I don't think even our Scottish 
hospitality can match that of Ireland. Every- 
thing seems to give way to the desire to accommo- 
date a stranger, and I really believe the story of 
the Irish harper who condemned his harp to the 
flames for want of firewood to cook a guest's 
supper." 

In strolling about the grounds of the castle 
after coming down from the keep, I was charmed 
with the great beauty of the surroundings — the 
grassy grounds, the great old trees, the rocky 
glens, and the romantic nooks. ''The sweet 
Rock-close," a part of the grounds of singular 
beauty, was* made famous by a poem written in 
1798 by Richard Alfred Millikin, an attorney 
of Cork. The poem, catchy and musical, was 
intended as a parody on "Sweet Castle Hyde," 
a song-poem very popular in Ireland at that 
time. Two of the verses were about as follows: 

THE GROVES OF BLARNEY 

The groves of Blarney they look so charming, 
Down by the purling of sweet silent brooks — 

All decked by posies that spontaneous grow there 
Planted in order in the rocky nooks. 

'Tis there the daisy, and the sweet carnation, 
The blooming pink and the rose so fair, 



54 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Likewise the lily, and the daffodilly — 
All flowers that scent the sweet, silent air. 

'Tis Lady Jeffers owns this plantation, 

Like Alexander, or like Helen fair, 
There's no commander in all the nation 

For regulation can with her compare. 
Such walls surround her, that no nine-pounder 

Could ever plunder her place of strength; 
But Oliver Cromwell, he did her pommel, 

And made a breach in her battlement. 

To the six rollicking stanzas of this popular 
parody, Francis S. Mahony, of Cork, better 
known as Father Prout, added the following 
lines which have served to carry the tradition of 
the Blarney Stone to every part of the world: 

"There is a stone there, 
That whoever kisses, 
Oh! he never misses 
To grow eloquent. 
'Tis he may clamber 
To a lady's chamber 
Or become a member 
Of sweet Parliament. 

"A clever spouter 

He'll sure turn out, or 
An out and outer, 
To be let alone! 
Don't hope to hinder him, 
Or to bewilder him, 
Sure he's a pilgrim 
From the Blarney Stone." 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 55 

I found my jaunting-car ready for me on the 
outside of the castle grounds. The driver was 
contentedly smoking his pipe. Irish drivers do 
not become impatient. Their temperaments 
make it impossible. 

We drove back to Cork by another and even 
more picturesque route than the one by which 
we came. All Irish roads are good, but those 
roads were perfection. On each side was a 
picture of rural prosperity; and when we reached 
the hills overlooking the valley of the Lee a 
broad prospect of intensive cultivation was dis- 
closed. 

There were houses of different kinds along the 
road, some of them "castles" of the gentry, set 
back in groves, and others, much the larger 
number, were but huts of stone, plastered over 
with mud and whitewashed. Some of them were 
newly covered with slate (the result of agitation 
on the part of reform societies), but many of 
them were still roofed in with the old-time 
thatch. Around the doorways moved the usual 
objects of animal life, and little barefoot children 
played and shouted just as other children are 
wont to do. 

We met or passed many vehicles in the road, 



56 SHAMROCK-LAND 

some of them carrying representatives of what 
might have been three or four generations of 
the same family. Those in their prime sat in 
front and drove, the old, with pipes, sat farther 
back, and the children filled the cart's body 
and clung to the tailboard, behind. And there 
were pedestrians going hither and thither, their 
dress too often corresponding but poorly with 
the richness of the landscapes against which 
they could be seen. For throughout this region 
of south Ireland one gains the impression (which 
I am not sure he ever succeeds in getting rid of) 
that Ireland as a country is very rich, while 
Ireland as a people is painfully poor. 

And the faces we saw in the way! The im- 
pression has gone forth, how or why no one 
seems to know, that the Irish are a race of idle 
buffoons whose thoughts go no deeper than the 
mere surface of things, and whose speech is 
made up of bulls, and burlesques, and blunders. 
To be sure, the Irish are a quick-witted people, 
and their sense of humor (not unusual with an 
intensely emotional race) is particularly keen. 
But the one who holds that they are thoughtless 
is no less mistaken than he who believes them to 
be a jovially contented people. Directly upon 




c 



CASTLE OF BLARNEY 57 

the contrary in both instances, the Irish are 
veritable artists in introspection, and their tem- 
peraments are essentially melancholy. Almost 
every native face shows, sometimes though it 
be through smiles, a shade of unutterable 
sadness. 

It may be those bog-lands filled with mist; it 
may be the old crumbling ruins; it may be the 
gray lakes; or all, behind the quiet Irish face, 
which cause every visitor to the isle of the 
shamrock to bring back with him the impression 
of having visited the saddest land of earth. 
And the one who goes there and thinks and 
feels knows that the "Irish question" is as deep 
as Irish character, and as solemn, indeed, as 
the gloomy mists which settle down every night 
upon the ruins that crown the hilltops and bury 
in darkness the hovels of thatch that nestle 
pathetically in the valleys. 



CHAPTER III 

WALKS AND TALKS WITH THE PEOPLE OF KIL- 
LARNEY 

The day I left the old city of Cork for 
Killarney, out in the mountains of Kerry, the 
rain fell incessantly, the thick, damp mists 
blowing in from the sea and enveloping the 
whole dank, luscious, green country in a melan- 
choly gloom. Nature's tears fall freely over 
Ireland. Not even June with her daisies, her 
roses, and her red wild poppies, can claim for 
her meadows more than fitful gleams of sun- 
shine flashing down through swiftly-moving 
clouds; or, at most, a gentle, hazy day shut in 
on either side with long seasons of wind and 
rain. 

Perhaps the sadness and hopelessness seen on 

so many Irish faces may in a measure be due 

to the climate of that strange island of the sea. 

Many thinkers assert that all the apparent 

thriftlessness of this people at home results 

58 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 59 

primarily from conditions which are more or less 
climatic. Those who have studied deeply into 
the racial characteristics of the Irish people and 
are sufficiently familiar with ethnology to draw 
broad conclusions, say the Irish were originally 
a far southern people, and for thousands of 
years lived in the sunshine of some mild Oriental 
land. They had from the childhood of the race 
the habit of living out-of-doors and breathing 
the fresh air of the fields and woods. 

Many thousands of years ago they found their 
way into Europe, possibly overland, possibly 
through Phoenician ports, and in the process of 
time they were driven by encroaching tribes 
farther and farther into the north and west, 
until they reached Ireland, the ultimate island 
of Europe, set in the path of the currents and 
winds of the ocean that envelop the land for 
most of the year in mist, and fog, and rain. 
Here they have lived since that remote period, 
holding in their hearts an inherited passion for 
the sun, the fresh air, and the fields; and while 
their environments are so cruel and harsh, their 
instincts revert to that age when a long line of 
progenitors lived under sunlit and star-bedecked 
skies, Nature's wards, their food the milk of the 



60 SHAMROCK-LAND 

goat, the fig and the olive, their home but the 
flapping tent of wild asses' skins. And thus 
the Irish peasant to-day, by nature a poet, by 
inheritance a dreamer of dreams, lives in a 
constant and unequal struggle with his en- 
vironments, denied every requisite which his 
sympathetic nature demands; and always re- 
membering the old, and never adapting himself 
to the new, the open air is still his home, that 
cottage of stone on the hillside but his nightly 
resting-place. 

And so, they say, the Irish people can never 
thrive so long as they remain in the island home, 
but they need transplanting in some sunny cli- 
mate where they can return to the habits of the 
youth of their race and receive a fair share of 
nature's smiles along with her necessary tears. 
It may be this old call which has lured so many 
of them to follow the sunset's line of light across 
the Atlantic, to become so happy and so strong 
in a land where, neither in nature nor among 
men is the hand of a tyrant lifted against them. 

But to return to that day in June. — It was 
indeed a gloomy day without, but within my 
compartment in an antique coach on an antique 
railroad there was a plenty of sunshine. My 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 61 

fellow-travelers were a young man from county 
Clare, a typical old Irish woman of Kerry, and 
a black-haired, crimson-cheeked girl with a glint 
in her gray-blue eye. The old woman talked 
incessantly of her neighborhood and its affairs — 
potato weeding, the fowls, haying, and this glori- 
ous rain. The young man smoked his pipe, 
now and then making a facetious remark at 
which they all laughed; and the young girl, who 
had remarkably pretty teeth, was a constant 
smile. 

At Mallow Junction in northern county Cork, 
I was switched off on the westbound train for 
Killarney, forty miles away, where I arrived 
in the pouring rain at nine o'clock in the evening. 
In the lobby of a well-appointed tourist hotel 
I found a number of congenial American travelers 
and not a few well-dressed Englishmen and 
Irishmen who were there ostensibly to enjoy 
the scenery of that most romantic district of 
Ireland. 

Killarney has long had the reputation of being 
the most entrancing spot in the British Isles. 
The charm of this region lies not only in a 
natural beauty which is unsurpassed anywhere 
else in the world, but also in a vast number of 



62 SHAMROCK-LAND 

wonderful ruins which serve vividly to remind one 
of the historic richness of the Celtic past. There 
is a chain of lakes, overhung with precipitous 
mountains, rising in dense blue lazulite to lofty 
heights above the lapping waves. There are 
long glens, shut in with green cliffs on either 
side, where the sunlight barely enters at noon- 
day, and where the evening shadows quickly 
fall. There are islands scattered here and there 
upon the lakes, ruin-clad, and rioting with dense 
growths of holly and arbutus; and forests of 
tangled beech and oak and larch and fir and elm, 
almost tropical in growth, covering the mountain- 
sides. And there are peasants' cottages every- 
where to be seen; and a multitude of ancient 
ruins, on the islands, down by the lake shores, 
in the valleys, and up on the sides of the cliffs — 
castles, towers, monasteries, priories, and abbeys 
— vine-clad and yew-shaded, with histories ex- 
tending back into the very early days of Irish 
life. 

The Lakes of Killarney proper are three in 
number. The Upper Lake, the southernmost, 
covering an area of only 430 acres, is overhung 
with mountains, the Purple Mountain being 
directly on the northern shore, and the Derry- 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 63 

cunihy ranges on the south. Upon this lake are 
many romantic islands and some old ruins. The 
Middle Lake, known also as Muckross or Tore 
Lake, contains an area of 680 acres. Over it 
hang Tore Mountain on the south, and Sheehy 
Mountain on the west. Between these two 
mountains flows the Long Range, a stream 
which joins the lakes together. Above this 
stream also hangs Eagle's Nest, whose cliffs rise 
perpendicularly 1700 feet from the water's edge. 
Where the Long Range joins Lake Muckross, 
old Weir Bridge stands, and near by is the Meet- 
ing of the Waters. The northernmost lake, 
known as Lough Leane, has an area of 5,000 
acres and is five miles long and about three 
miles broad. Clustered around it are innumer- 
able ruins. 

On the west of the lakes rise tall mountains, 
beyond which, extending from north to south 
for five miles, is the famous Gap of Dunloe, one 
of the curiosities of Ireland. Farther still to the 
west are the MacGillicuddy Reeks, the tallest 
mountains of Ireland. 

North of the lakes are cottages, roads,streams, 
villages, churches, and ruins of castles and round 
towers. On the east is a rolling grassy country, 



64 SHAMROCK-LAND 

with many white roads, the railway line, and 
the well-known town of Killarney. 

Early on the morning after my arrival, tourists 
were getting ready for extended drives about 
the lakes and through the famous Gap of Dunloe, 
\vhere they might see the purpling of the hills 
and the flashings of light above the gray waters 
in the distance. I took my note-book and my 
camera and determined that I would while my 
first day away just walking and talking with 
the people of the little town and the surrounding 
countryside. 

I strolled down the old densely shaded street 
until I reached the town. And what a town 
Killarney is! Its population is about five or six 
thousand — the vast majority of the inhabitants 
being real Irish of a type that charms and a 
manner that enthralls a traveler's heart. The 
main streets are fairly well kept, with some good 
shops, and a handsome church or two, but the 
byways and lanes are picturesque indeed. 
Here dilapidated houses meet one at almost 
every turn; thatched roofs line the cobbled 
streets; strings of geese roam at sweet will from 
doorway to doorway; crows and rooks chatter 
and caw from every spire and beetling chimney- 




u 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 65 

top; grimy children play in front of bare stony 
doorways; and low-backed cars from far out in 
the mountains stand in the sunny open squares, 
waiting for purchasers of their peat, their 
feathers, and their gooseberries. 

I soon found myself in a market square where 
a line of low-backed donkey cars were standing, 
all loaded and piled up with black, brick-shaped 
blocks of turf or peat from the bogs somewhere 
out in the country. Beside the miniature teams 
were the drivers, either standing alone absorbed 
in dreams, or in little groups talking with that 
solemnity of manner peculiar to Ireland. When 
I walked up I had no difficulty in engaging them 
in conversation. Like most Irishmen, they were 
willing to talk, and were happy to give me such 
information as they could about such things as 
I wished to know. They told me this peat, or 
turf, as they called it, had been cut from bogs 
out in the mountain passes and small valleys, 
and that they had brought it to town to sell to 
the villagers at two shillings the load. Their 
dress was original and in some cases shabby, 
but it was decidedly picturesque. The three or 
four mountain girls among these peat-sellers were 
dressed in the usual inland Irish costume — 



66 SHAMROCK-LAND 

short skirts, heavy woolen stockings, and very 
heavy, thick-bottomed shoes. And they all had 
shawls over their heads drawn so closely that 
their faces were hidden except from those who 
stood immediately in front of them. 

I wished to get a picture of the line of carts with 
their drivers. So I asked one of the girls if she 
objected to my taking the photograph. She 
seemed embarrassed and pretended not to hear 
what I said. I insisted, however, and brought 
together a number of the turf-sellers, including 
some peculiarly rustic-looking old fellows from 
somewhere far out in the mountains. One of the 
old men seemed at first rather undecided about 
the matter, as though it were no trifling thing 
thus to give away a privilege which might prove to 
be a valuable one, so he stood aside and thought 
it all over. Finally he took his pipe from his 
mouth, looked deliberately at his companion, 
and said: "Now, since we think, Michael, what 
is the objection ? Can ye think of inny ? " 
Michael stood for a moment scratching his head 
in the most intensely thoughtful manner, then 
he said, "No, dommed if I can!" And with this 
decision reached they got in line and I photo- 
graphed the entire group. 





Underwood & L'nderwood, New York. 



Upper Lake — Killarney. 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 67 

Leaving the market square, I strolled leisurely 
through the long main street of the town, past 
the suburbs, and into the green fields of the 
country. From the vantage ground of a high 
grassy hill I looked over towards the south and 
west where the tall blue mountains stood above 
the Lakes of Killarney. It was a showery day, 
and a mist now and then passed below the 
mountains' summits, obscuring their green sides 
with skeins of rain. 

Somewhat below me stretched the broad 
demesne of the Earl of Kenmare, the owner of 
that whole vast countryside, including the lake 
front, many extensive old ruins, and the entire town 
of Killarney. The fine mansion of the Kenmare 
estate, a very extensive castellated structure in 
red sandstone, recently erected, is about a mile 
from the center of the town. One may be ad- 
mitted to the private demesne, which is shut out 
from the public on every side by tall stone walls, 
upon the payment of a sixpence at any one of 
several gates. The grounds are handsomely 
kept, and contain points where extensive views 
of the lakes may be obtained. 

It is said that about a hundred years ago the 
town of Killarney was entirely rebuilt by the 



68 SHAMROCK-LAND 

landlord who wished to make there a model 
town. He left room behind every dwelling for 
a garden, and provided other attractions for the 
villagers. In the leases, however, he failed to 
embody a clause prohibiting the use of the garden 
spaces for other purposes, and as a consequence 
the tenants, taking advantage of the liberty al- 
lowed them, built cheaper houses, in some cases 
mere hovels, upon the leased areas, and sublet 
them to other tenants. This apparently is the 
reason why there are so many poor cabin-like 
structures on all the lanes and back streets of the 
little town. 

Coming back into the town, I stopped at a 
little corner pharmacy, or "medical hall," as the 
Irish would call it, and made a few minor pur- 
chases. The proprietors were particularly kind 
to me, and conversed with me for some time 
upon Ireland, especially in its relation to England. 
I asked if it were really true that the Irish hate 
England at this time. "I suppose," said my 
newly made acquaintance, "that the word which 
you use is the proper one. Yes, we hate them!" 
His statement reminded me of a conversation 
which I had had not many days before with an 
Irish priest. He said, "Yes, we hate them, and 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 69 

we thank God for the blessed privilege of hating 
under the circumstances. There is such a thing 
as a holy hatred — a hatred that edifies." 

Just outside of the pharmacy stood two healthy, 
strong young policemen, or constables. They 
talked with me for some time about their duties, 
and related some interesting experiences. They 
were a part of a system which is bitterly dis- 
tasteful to the average Irishman. The Govern- 
ment of Britain maintains a small army of twelve 
thousand constabulary in Ireland, their barracks 
being established in all parts of the island, in- 
cluding the most remote country districts. The 
Irish bitterly resent this police supervision, and 
in speaking of them prefer to characterize them 
with the term, "Government military spies." 
There are, however, comparatively few arrests 
in recent years, and clashes between the con- 
stabulary and the people are becoming less and 
less frequent. 

I moved across the street where a middle- 
aged woman of pleasant face was presiding 
over a provender stand and dispensing eatables 
of various kinds to barefoot boys and young 
men who happened to pass. I had no difficulty 
in engaging this good-natured seller of goodies 



70 SHAMROCK-LAND 

in conversation. Fully a dozen young men and 
boys, most of them evidently village loafers, 
stood about me listening to what I had to say 
about America, now and then, in characteristic 
Irish manner, putting in a telling question. It 
seemed that most of them could tell at a glance 
that I was an American; and they could not 
let an American pass without notice. Like 
most of the Irish, they appeared to love the 
"grate counthry" across the Atlantic, and they 
were willing to suffer many an inconvenience to 
do a western traveler a good turn. 

I noticed that every now and then a small 
boy would come along, give the lady a farthing 
or a ha'penny, get a handful of something out 
of a round wooden box, stuff it in his pocket, 
and go off chewing happily. The substance 
looked like dried rose petals, but I was told 
that it was a kind of a seaweed which was very 
wholesome indeed. "Foine f'r the diegistion!" 
explained one of the young men. "Virry salty 
and good. Thry it at my expinse." They all, 
including the old lady, insisted upon my tasting 
this sea product, but I told them that I had just 
had breakfast and seldom ate anything between 
meals. 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 71 

Upon the stand also were turnips, carrots, 
potatoes, and a great pan of extraordinarily large 
gooseberries. I bought a pound of the berries 
for a penny, and found them to be excellently 
flavored. There was also upon the stand a box 
containing about a peck of snails which were 
selling rapidly, the small boys purchasing them 
readily at a ha'penny for a handful. I asked 
what they were, and the old woman called them 
by a name which I could not catch, though it 
was repeated to me several times, not only by 
the old lady, but also by several of the obliging 
bystanders. 

"Jist think of it!" said the kind-hearted old 
dispenser of goodies, "the gintleman has niver 
tasted inny of this food. These is foine; jist 
thry one!" And before I knew what she was 
doing or could interpose an objection, she pulled 
a hairpin out of her hair, twisted it into the snail 
shell, pried the slimy creature out and had it 
almost in my mouth as I dodged backwards. I 
bade her a too hasty good day, at the risk of 
sacrificing all my American manners; but I 
simply had to do this, for I had not long before 
had a most severe case of seasickness, and with- 
out a change of scene and thought I could not 



72 SHAMROCK-LAND 

have contained myself another minute if my life 
had depended upon it. 

I was afterwards informed by an Irishman 
that what I took to be snails was a species of 
snail-like shell fish brought in from the seashore. 
It was considered in that section to be excellent 
food. 

Idly rambling about the town, talking to such 
of the inhabitants as I met in the way, I entered 
some of the small shops and even dwellings. On 
the back streets of Killarney, as elsewhere in 
rural Ireland, the front doors of the dwellings 
open on a level with the street, and not one 
house in a dozen has anything except a dirt or 
rough stone floor. 

It was a showery day — what day is not in 
Ireland ? — and whenever a hard, cold shower 
would come over, chickens, geese, ducks, cats, 
dogs, and children would scramble over each 
other to get into the house. When the shower 
was over, they would come out again to wade 
and wallow or scratch or play in the mud and 
dirt of the gutters. 

There was one long string of geese in Killarney 
that appeared to be ubiquitous. They seemed 
to have the freedom of the town. They moved 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 73 

swiftly, and did not seem to care particularly 
where they went. These geese that day were 
about the wettest and dirtiest that I saw any- 
where about me, and I am sure their impudence 
and boldness surpassed their dirtiness. They 
seemed to be perfectly indifferent as to whose 
house they entered and into whose dinner pots 
they thrust their dirty heads. 

I saw these geese diving and playing in a 
gutter running with black filthy water just after 
a shower, and then file suddenly into a house 
where a number of fowls and animals of various 
kinds had congregated. The old woman who 
lived there could stand much, and she showed by 
her countenance that she had gone through a 
great deal of rough treatment, but there was a 
limit to her endurance. I heard her mutter 
something about "dirthy spalpeens" and "long- 
nicked divils" as she grabbed hold of a broom- 
stick; and for the next five minutes the air was 
filled with goose feathers, cat yowls, table legs, 
dirty water, peat ashes, mud, dog hair, skillet 
tops, and bitter ejaculations, mixed in intricate 
and unutterable confusion. When finally the 
mists had cleared away I saw the string of geese, 
with feathers awry, passing hastily around a 



74 SHAMROCK-LAND 

corner, a dog was limping rapidly off, and a 
barefoot boy, with breeches legs extending al- 
most down to his ankles, stood just outside of 
the doorway almost dying from laughter. 

Still strolling around, I entered a very small 
shop, somewhat below the level of the sidewalk, 
on one of the principal streets of the town. In 
the window were a few small packages of gro- 
ceries and ordinary household necessities. I 
wished to purchase a cake of chocolate, and I 
used this as an excuse for entering the little 
shop. Two middle-aged women of real Irish 
stock sat on opposite sides of the rude counter, 
apparently gossiping as all other women at 
times are supposed to do. When I entered, they 
asked me with characteristic Irish politeness of 
manner what I wished to purchase and how 
they might be able to serve me. They saw at a 
glance, as they told me, that I was an American, 
and this fact made them particularly anxious 
to treat me kindly. Both of them had many rela- 
tives and friends beyond the Atlantic; and while 
I was talking to them about cities and places of 
which they made inquiry, two little girls, a 
daughter of each of the ladies, came into the 
room from the back door, struggling fiercely with 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 



75 



each other over some point of difference in their 
play. The mothers were much disturbed that an 
American gentleman should thus witness such a 
display of Irish physical prowess in their home, 
so they began to make all kinds of excuses for 
the little tots. Finally they threatened to let the 
gentleman take both of them across the ocean 
with him unless they would at once discontinue 
fighting. This threat had the desired effect, and 
within five minutes they were in the very best of 
humor, chatting with me and telling me all 
kinds of wondrous things about their toys and 
playthings. 

The ladies wished me to see the picture of a 
famous cow that had taken many medals and 
prizes at cattle fairs and shows in various places. 
They took me into an adjoining room, ap- 
parently the dining-room, where there was a 
table set with white bread and a plate of golden 
Irish butter upon it. I noticed that a dead crow 
was suspended by a string from some point 
above, and allowed to swing immediately in front 
of the window of the room. I inquired what 
this meant, and was told that the crows were so 
bad in Killarney that they would come even into 
the house and steal unless they in this strange 



76 SHAMROCK-LAND 

manner were frightened away. They could not 
shoot them because they were prohibited by 
law from keeping fire-arms in the house without 
a permit and the payment of a heavy fee. For 
this reason the crows and rooks had almost 
taken possession of Ireland. 

While we were still talking about "Amuriky," 
an old Irishman, seemingly just from the pages 
of a comic weekly, came into the room from the 
street. He was almost a perfect specimen of 
the real Irishmen of the remote inland districts. 
He did not wait for the ladies to introduce him, 
but introduced himself to me and told me in a 
most cordial manner that I was particularly 
welcome to the premises. He was father-in-law 
of both of these ladies, his two sons having 
married them some years before. He lived here 
with them, picking up a stray penny wherever one 
might be found. I told him that I was intensely 
interested in the Irish people, particularly those 
of the peasantry class; and he informed me that 
he knew all that there was to be known about 
them, as he himself happened to be one of them 
and had lived for a good many years in intimate 
contact with them. 

He told me that it would be one of the pleasures 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 77 

of his life to go with me about the town and its 
environs and show me the sights. The ladies 
forthwith put in strenuous objection to this, 
declaring that they would not consent to his 
going with me unless I would promise faithfully 
not to give him anything to drink. "Och! he 
is a terrible dhrinker!" one of them said; and 
the other added, "And he is that foolish whin 
he gits a-dhrinkin' that we can't have any peace 
about the primises." 

I gave the ladies my faithful promise not to 
give the old fellow anything to drink, and they 
gave their consent to his going with me. As 
soon as we had gotten out of the door he said in 
a contemptuous way: "Yis, the women thinks 
they know about all there is to know. Dhrink, 
is it ? And I the greathest timp'rance worruker 
in all county Kerry!" His nose indicated what 
kind of "worruk" he was accustomed, when he 
had the opportunity, to do. But he continued: 

"Women is that shtrange I sometimes sit an* 
wonder. Is it thrue in Amuriky that the gintle 
six is of such a nature? Och! what mysteries! 
And thin, more mysteries to thimsilves than 
to innybody ilse." Then he grew quiet and 
thoughtful as we walked along. Coming to 



78 SHAMROCK-LAND 

himself again, he looked down at his old clothes 
and began to excuse himself for his appearance. 
His dress was indeed shabby, but his very face 
showed that a kind heart had its home in his 
bosom, and I felt sure that he had no grudge 
against anybody or any living thing in all the 
world. 

We set out under his direction to walk down 
towards the lakes, those sheets of gray water 
lying in the shadows of the tall green moun- 
tains. The road along which we walked was 
smooth and clean, and densely shaded with wide- 
spreading, gnarled old trees, bearing upon them 
the weight of centuries. Now and then we 
passed an old landmark — a stone set in the 
ground, some old cottage buried under the trees, 
or some reputed resort of the fairies. One tree, 
immediately in the way, marked with stones set 
about it, had witnessed a most tragic occurrence 
under its branches. A tall stone wall, extend- 
ing from the town to the lake, a distance of 
nearly two miles, shut out completely from view 
the mountains and the lakes. Over this wall 
was the lordly demesne of the Earl of Kenmare. 
My companion told me that the estate had with- 
in recent years passed through financial stress, 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 79 

but that he hoped it would all come out right 
in the end. Anyway, the people in and about 
Killarney were living, and now and then they 
got something good to eat and a drop to drink. 

On our walk we met many semi-beggars — 
men, women, and boys — who wished to sell us 
shoestrings, cheap souvenirs, post cards, bog-oak 
pipes and other trifling gewgaws hardly worth 
the carrying away. My old companion did his 
utmost to protect me from the most annoying 
importunities of these people, and he even went 
farther than my conscience would approve in his 
efforts to befriend me. He told one of them on 
the side that I was a famous nobleman traveling 
incognito, and that too many words from him 
would surely land him in a dungeon in the Tower 
of London. The effect was magical. To an- 
other he said I was "Prisident of New Yorruk," 
and that I did not wish to be worried. To 
several others he made the statement that I was 
in a great hurry, and that I had to be at the 
station within the next quarter of an hour. 
This when I was two miles away and afoot! 

At length we reached old Ross Castle, one of 
the best preserved ruins of that entire region. 
The castle is built immediately upon Lough 



80 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Leane, or the Lower Lake, on an island which 
is connected with the mainland by a very narrow 
neck of land. The ancient building is a most 
picturesque one, massive and strong, with a 
growth of ivy covering it almost completely from 
the foundations to the lofty tower. The castle 
was erected several centuries ago by one of the 
noted O'Donoghues, a chieftain and fighter, well 
known in Irish history. In early days the castle 
had a bloody history, but it is noted to-day because 
it was the last stronghold in Munster Ireland 
to surrender to the forces of the Commonwealth 
in 1652 when Cromwell and his lieutenants over- 
ran Ireland intent upon wholesale butchery. 

A little distance away on the eastern shore of 
the lake were the ruins of another old castle, and 
a little farther still were the ruins of Muckross 
Abbey, founded by the Franciscans in 1340. 
These ruins are among the most famous in Ire- 
land, and the spot itself is entrancingly beautiful. 
In the opposite direction was the island of Innis- 
fallen, noted in literature and history. From 
the shore this little island appears to be but a 
mass of evergreens, but when one approaches it 
across the lake in a boat he sees that beneath the 
trees there are glades, and lawns, and paths, and 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 

The Lower Lake, Killarney. 

From Lord Kenmare's Mansion. 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 81 

ruins, that give the appearance of a veritable 
fairyland. So rich is the soil that the arbutus 
and hollies grow into great spreading trees. 
Buried in a dense bower of immense, drooping 
trees are the ruins of an old abbey founded in 
the year 650 a.d., by St. Finian. Here in this 
wonderful old building the Annals of Innisfallen 
were written. This famous historical work gives 
us much of what we know of early Irish history. 
The Annals also state that in the year 1 180, when 
this abbey held vast stores of riches, both silver 
and gold, Mildwin, son of Daniel O'Donoghue, 
plundered the treasuries and slayed many of the 
keepers in the very cemetery of the McCarthys. 
One is almost overwhelmed as he contem- 
plates the wondrous beauty of this dank, shady 
island with its ruins. It is scarcely a wonder 
that it inspired the Irish poet Yeats to write 
what Robert Louis Stevenson thought was the 
most exquisite poem of modern times: 

" And I shall have some peace there, 
For peace comes dropping slow, 
Dropping from the veils of the morning 
To where the cricket sings; 
There midnight's all a-glimmer 
And noon a purple glow, 
And evening full of the linnet's wings. 



82 SHAMROCK-LAND 

" I will arise and go now, 
For always, night or day, 
I hear lake water lapping, 
With low sounds by the shore; 
While I stand on the roadway, 
Or on the pavements gray, 
I hear it in the deep heart's core." 

To Thackeray this spot was "quiet, innocent, 
and tender." Perhaps the sunshine falling across 
Purple Mountain upon the ruins remained the 
longest in the memory of Thomas Moore. Said 
he: 

" Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell 

In memory's dream that sunny smile 
Which o'er thee on that evening fell 
When first I saw thy fairy isle." 

It was the view through the dense shade of 
bending yew and holly, of the cliffs of the Eagle's 
Nest, past Glena Wood and beyond the Meeting 
of the Waters, which inspired Alfred Austin to 
say: 

"The first, the final, the deepest and most 
enduring impression of Killarney is that of 
beauty unspeakably tender, which puts on at 
times a garb of grandeur and a look of awe, 
only in order to heighten by passing contrast 
the sense of soft, insinuating loveliness. How 
the missel-thrushes sing, as well they may! How 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 83 

the streams and runnels gurgle and leap and 
laugh! For the sound of journeying water is 
never out of your ears; the feeling of the moist, 
the fresh, the vernal is never out of your heart. 
There is nothing in England or Scotland as 
beautiful as Killarney; and if mountain, wood, 
and water, harmoniously blent, constitute the 
most perfect and adequate loveliness that nature 
presents, it surely must be owned that it has, all 
the world over, no superior." 

The boatman sat for a long time on the shore 
near the old Ross Castle and talked to me of 
his life and his little mountain home. Ah! how 
poorly he lived there! In summers he rowed 
the tourists upon the lake, but och! how long the 
dreary winters were when never a visitor came. 
He would have gone to America long, long ago, 
only he could never get enough money together 
to take him and his little family. He supposed 
he would have to live all his years here upon the 
lakes. But he asked me many questions about 
the great country beyond the Atlantic where so 
many of his friends had gone. Indeed, was it 
not the money which they sent back that paid 
all the rents of Killarney ? Yes, and this was 



84 SHAMROCK-LAND 

true all through Ireland. The old people would 
starve if it were not for the help which they got 
from the boys and girls in America. 

And then my old Killarney guide wished also 
to ask me some questions about America. He 
had long had the curiosity to know what kind 
of telephone poles they had over there. Were 
the fences made of stone as in Ireland ? Were 
the chickens mostly white ones or speckled ? 
And he had heard the freight cars were very 
large. But he was afraid he could not stand the 
climate. He had heard it was "tremindously" 
hot over there in summer, and too much heat 
made him dizzy in the head. He said he had 
heard the wages there were very high. In Kerry 
they were low. A good, stout farmer's boy 
would work a whole year for ten pounds and 
board. The board ? Well, it v/as only fair, 
mostly bread and a little butter, with "tay" in 
the evenings. But meat was to be had some- 
times, perhaps not oftener than once a week. 

The lake water was lapping at our feet. The 
old man looked down at his worn old shoes. Ah! 
he hated to be seen out wearing such shoes, but 
indeed they were the best he had. The truth 
was he had buried his old wife not long before 



PEOPLE OF KILLARNEY 85 

and it had taken all his money to pay the under- 
taking expenses. Still he felt that he had done 
his part. It was "a grate funeral and a moighty 
wake." 

Och! how he would like to get to a country 
where there was a plenty of money! He had 
heard that even the farm hands in America got 
good wages. But what did they eat ? I told 
him they could get meat three times a day. 

"Glory be to God!" he said in amazement. 
"And do they get tay to dhrink, and now and 
then some ale and porther?" 

I told him they usually had all the tea and 
coffee they wished to drink, and they could gen- 
erally get beer and porter when they wanted it. 

"Glory be to God on high!" he exclaimed, 
rising from his seat. But he turned sadly away 
and sighed. "I've waited too long," he said. 
'Tm too old!" 

It was getting late. A gray mist was settling 
over the lakes and burying the islands out of 
sight. We passed the ivy-clad castle and walked 
up the old roadway that reeked with the dense 
perfume of flowers and breathed forth the odors 
of the fresh showers of June. The sun had 
sunken far down behind the mountains, but its 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



rays had turned the clouds into gold. Some 
of the sheen fell athwart the summits of the 
lofty blue mountains above us, and lighted them 
up with a quiet, unspeakable glory. 




U 



u 



-a 
O 



CHAPTER IV 

A RAMBLE THROUGH THE GOLDEN VALE OF 
TIPPERARY 

I had heard much of the Golden Vale of 
Tipperary. Guide-books say it is ''the most 
fertile tract of Ireland"; travelers who have 
seen that portion of the "ould sod" write of it 
as a "prosperous and beautiful agricultural 
region"; and those Irish people who have 
found their way to America speak of it with a 
sparkle in their eyes and a pride in their voices 
as "the counthry God made afther His own 
pathern." 

I was led to believe, from what I had heard 
and read, that that portion of south central 
Ireland known as the "Golden Vale" occupies 
a position of rural supremacy with regard to 
the Emerald Isle comparable to that which the 
Shenandoah Valley does to the State of Virginia 
or the Blue Grass Region does to Kentucky. 

I was on my way thither one cold, showery 

June morning, and I expected to see before 

87 



88 SHAMROCK-LAND 

night something of a "foine counthry." In my 
compartment of the train bound from south- 
western Ireland to Dublin, the capital, on the 
central eastern coast of the island, were two 
married couples, apparently somewhat under 
middle age. From the manner in which they 
were dressed and the accent so noticeable in 
their speech, I judged they were from Scotland. 

One of the gentlemen, apparently a prosper- 
ous business man, was somewhat overbold, I 
thought, for he was actually talking politics 
here in Munster Ireland. One does not have 
to be an eavesdropper to hear many interest- 
ing things on the trains of the British Isles. 
Conversations are thrust upon one. This 
Scotchman, red-faced and tweed-attired, was 
descanting volubly upon political topics, and 
seemed not to be loath to express his opinions 
of Ireland and the Home Rule question. Said 
he, sometimes speaking directly to his compan- 
ions, sometimes apparently with more or less 
introspection: 

"If they had home rule what would the Irish 
do with it ? Would it satisfy them ? Are they 
ever satisfied with anything except fighting 
somebody or something? Ah! right there's the 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 89 

secret of it all. Fighting is in their blood, in- 
herited from a thousand generations of fighters. 
They've been fighting from history's very morn- 
ing. Their first weapons were rough stones 
and dead limbs from trees; then they learned 
how to dress flints with which to mutilate each 
other. From this they went to the short sword 
and the spear, thence to the cross-bow, the 
musket and the cannon, tapering off with the 
kippeen and the shillalah. Now most of their 
fighting is done with the tongue around the 
ballot boxes, with the policeman's billy in alley 
disturbances, or with the naked fist in the prize 
rings! 

"Oh! they are a great people in their way," 
he was going on to say, "a wonderful people: 
but constitutionally they are unable to govern 
themselves. They are too visionary, too emo- 
tional — quite too passionate." 

Then he undertook to explain how all the 
vast commercial interests of Protestant or Ulster 
Ireland would suffer if the Irish Catholic major- 
ity were given the upper hand, and concluded 
by saying that he as a Scotchman had abso- 
lutely no grudge against the Irish; upon the 
contrary, he admired them greatly for a num- 



9° 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



ber of their traits, but personally he did not 
think they should have home rule. It was 
against common sense, and, indeed, contrary to 
the teachings of history. 

A few days before this I had heard a Catholic 
priest say that no Irishman worth taking into 
consideration would ever be satisfied with any- 
thing less than total and complete home rule 
for Ireland. The country would not prosper, 
nor did the average Irishman wish it to prosper, 
so long as it was connected under the present 
arrangements with Great Britain. Let no one 
labor under the delusion, he said, that Ireland 
would ever give up the fight until she became 
free. 

Such conversations one may hear anywhere 
in Ireland if he chooses to listen. Every Irish 
newspaper is filled with discussions of the land 
and tenure question, the Gaelic League, or 
local Irish politics. The Irishman delights in 
long verbatim speeches and page-long articles 
dealing with the intricacies of the work of the 
reform societies or the Congested Districts 
Board. And he is ready at all times to discuss 
any phase of the so-called "Irish question." 

This "question" is not a new one. It dates 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 91 

from the year 1171 when Ireland was conquered 
by the Normans and brought under partial con- 
trol of England. The years in between have 
been filled with striving and fighting, the Irish- 
men all admit; while perhaps the most noted 
living Irishman insists that it was the Irish- 
man's predisposition to strife which first brought 
the island under the dominion of England. 

Reliable Irish history relates that during the 
early centuries of the Christian era Ireland was 
divided into many tribes and small kingdoms 
among which there was almost constant war. 
But after the introduction of Christianity in 
the fifth century the island became a center of 
culture which far eclipsed England or any other 
portion of western Europe. Its teachers are 
said to have founded the University of Paris; 
and learned men from its shores visited all north- 
ern and semi-pagan Europe, giving religious 
and secular instruction. But when the Danes 
came in the ninth and tenth centuries, plunder- 
ing, thieving, and murdering along the coasts, 
the Irish were literally worn out in their attempts 
to drive them from the country. Irish civiliza- 
tion and culture declined greatly on account of 
these disastrous wars. Finally, however, all 



92 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the tribes of the island were united under the 
leadership of Brian Boru, perhaps the most 
brilliant organizer and leader of the Irish race, 
and victory after victory was gained over the 
Danes. At Clontarf, the last great victory, 
Brian in returning to his tent was killed by a 
concealed enemy. This was in the year 1014. 

After Brian's death the island was again 
divided into four kingdoms, Ulster in the north, 
Leinster in the east, Munster in the south, and 
Connaught in the west. These were subdivided 
into innumerable kingdoms and principalities. 
Then fighting again commenced among the 
island kingdoms. It was the culmination of 
these quarrels, relates Justin McCarthy, which 
brought about union with England, the most 
unfortunate event, average Irishmen think, of 
all the unfortunate events of Irish history. It 
happened in this wise: 

The Lord or Chief of Brefni had a beautiful 
wife who attracted the admiration of Dermot 
Macmurragh, King of Leinster. Dermot, a 
reckless warrior, lover of the chase, semi-sav- 
age, and unscrupulous libertine, proceeded to 
Brefni's castle and with little difficulty per- 
suaded the fair Devorgilla to return home with 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 93 

him and become queen of Leinster. Brefni 
immediately took up arms to avenge the out- 
rage, and the result was civil war. The King 
of Connaught, the nominal supreme head of 
the country, took sides with Brefni, and Der- 
mot thought it best to escape the country. 
Henry II of England received him at his court, 
heard his story, and decided to invade Ireland 
and restore its equilibrium. Sixteen years be- 
fore this he had obtained from Pope Adrian IV 
a Bull of Authority over Ireland, on the ground 
of the alleged ignorance and immorality of the 
people; and he was appar itly happy to have 
this excuse for going over to possess the island. 

Robert Fitz-Stephen, a Norman knight, with 
Dermot as guide, crossed the channel with a 
small army of knights, men-at-arms, and Welsh 
archers. The Irish kernes found the English 
arms and horses irresistible; Wexford was taken, 
and a veritable slaughter ensued. Dermot 
seized the severed head of a fallen Irish foeman 
and with his teeth tore off its nose and its lips, 
proving the brutal savage that he was. 

Then came Richard of Clare, known as 
"Strongbow," who married Dermot's daughter 
Eva; and in 1171 Henry himself came with a 



94 SHAMROCK-LAND 

large army and overwhelmed Irish forces in 
different parts of the island. The Norman 
conquest was partial, but from that day to 
this England has ruled Ireland. This rule, 
tremendously aggravated by the Cromwellian 
massacres and the battles between the forces 
of William and James, and more than all by 
the Ulster dispossession and settlement, has 
never been kindly accepted by the Irish people. 
It is scarcely a wonder, then, that a grudge of 
seven hundred and forty years' standing should 
be considered a serious matter in Ireland. And 
it is not strange t it a traveler should hear 
discussion of the old question even in the grassy 
vale of Tipperary. 

We passed Mallow, in the Blackwater Valley, 
not many miles above the charming village of 
Lismore, whose castle, built by the Earl of 
Montaigne, afterwards King John of England, 
is now one of the twelve residences of the Duke 
and Duchess of Devonshire. This splendid 
castle, it may be noted, has for many years been 
looked upon by a number of the ultra-sanguine 
Irish people as a prospective royal residence in 
case anything does happen to make Ireland 
again a nation. 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 95 

Traveling northeastward, we passed Butte- 
vant, in northern county Cork, a town of much 
former splendor, but which even in Edmund 
Spenser's day was so old that the poet said in 
respect to it, "the ragged ruins breed great 
ruth and pittie." 

Five miles northeast of the town, at the foot 
of the strangely beautiful Ballyhoura Hills, is 
Kilcolman Castle, the home of Spenser, where 
the Faerie Queene was composed. Doneraile 
Park, once the property of the poet, is a few 
miles away on the south. 

At Charleville we passed out of County Cork 
into County Limerick. Here in the Valley of 
the Aherlow we caught our first glimpse of the 
Golden Vale. The Ballyhoura Hills and the 
Galty Mountains lay upon our south, and about 
us, blackish green, was a rolling country of 
grass, stretched as far as eye could see into the 
north, the east, and the west. Our next stop was 
at Limerick Junction, a busy railroad station out 
in the grassy meadows, twenty miles southeast 
of Limerick, an ancient Irish city, noted for 
its Treaty Stone and its fishing-hook factories. 
At Limerick Junction I left the train with my 
baggage and began to look about me at the sights. 



96 SHAMROCK-LAND 

The railway station at Limerick Junction was 
new and handsome, and was equipped with 
every modern convenience. It was a type of 
the buff-brick stations which within the past 
few years have been erected in all the principal 
towns and at important railway junctions in the 
island. There were comfortable waiting-rooms, 
lavatories, and news-stands, but by far the most 
conspicuous feature of the building was the bar, 
run in conjunction with the restaurant, which 
was tended by a number of unusually hand- 
some young girls. The bar was elaborately and 
luxuriantly equipped, its full stock of choice 
liquors, brandies and wines being in full view of 
the passing multitudes. If one wished a cup of 
hot chocolate or cocoa or a slight luncheon he 
must have it served there in front of the bar. 
To one with the slightest tendency in the direc- 
tion of dissipation, I fancy this place of refresh- 
ment would prove irresistible. 

The willingness on the part of the Irish people 
to allow bars in their railway stations is one proof 
of the fact that the old Irish vice still exists in 
the island. In olden days, historians and trav- 
elers tell us, liquor was almost if not altogether 
free of tax, and Ireland was given over to drunk- 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 97 

enness. Indeed, in the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth centuries it was often considered a mark 
of hospitality in a host to insist that his guests be 
made drunk when under his rooftree. Ingenious 
devices, it is said, were invented for compelling 
intoxication. In some cases glasses and bottles 
were provided which could not stand and 
which therefore had to be emptied before they 
could be laid upon the table. It was a trick 
at dinner parties for hosts to keep the tea-kettle 
filled with hot whisky in order that those who 
attempted to weaken their punch would un- 
wittingly strengthen it. A host was unmindful 
of even the smaller courtesies if he allowed his 
guests to get up from a festive table in the 
usual manner. Most of , the men had to be 
pulled out from underneath the board. An 
Irishman drunk was an Irishman "all in his 
glory." 

Father Theobald Matthew, a Capuchin friar, 
to whom a statue stands in Patrick Street, Cork, 
originated a crusade against drunkenness in 
1838, and by 1840 he had upon his total absti- 
nence rolls a total of two million five hundred 
and thirty thousand names. From that time an 
improvement set in, and drunkenness became 



q8 SHAMROCK-LAND 

much less frequent everywhere in the island. 
Since Father Matthew's day, however, a reac- 
tion has set in, and a traveler to-day in Ireland 
will see much drunkenness. The attitude of 
the church towards drinking is less favorable 
than it once was, but efforts against the liquor 
traffic are desultory and scattering, and accom- 
plish little. It is said, however, that this is 
to be expected since so many of the clergy 
themselves drink regularly and sometimes to 
excess. Many of the priests are sons of liquor 
dealers, and it is something of a custom for the 
Irish brewers or public-house keepers to give 
one of their sons to be educated for the priest- 
hood. 

One of the most brilliant Catholic priests in 
Ireland, himself, I believe, a total abstainer, 
told me he had come to the conclusion that 
his countrymen have little right to grumble 
about their tax bill of £9,000,000, while they 
cheerfully and hilariously allowed their drink 
bill to total £14,000,000 a year, and this too 
when Ireland of all countries in the world is 
the least able to afford it. 

Mr. T. P. O'Connor, talking to me about 
this matter in the Houses of Parliament in Lon- 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 99 

don, told me that while the drink bill of Ireland 
was reported as being enormous there were 
extenuating circumstances. "Drink/' he said, 
"has been called 'the child of despondency,' 
though it is also the child of hopeless poverty. 
Give the Irish a brighter outlook and their 
tendency to drink will no doubt be diminished." 

But whatever arguments may be offered pro 
and con, the disinterested and unprejudiced 
traveler through Ireland would certainly feel 
more comfortable in extending his sympathies 
to the Irish people in their troubles if he did 
not see so many elaborately equipped bars and 
public-houses in such close juxtaposition to the 
thatched-roofed, stone-floored cottages of those 
who can in no possible manner afford the lux- 
ury of drink. 

At the suggestion of the courteous and kindly 
station master, I decided to spend part of the 
three hours which I must wait in visiting the 
famous old town of Tipperary which was but 
three miles away on the south. I boarded a 
train bound for Waterford, and in less than ten 
minutes I was in Tipperary town. When I 
looked about me I felt sure that I was in Ire- 
land indeed. Here all the marks were to be 



ioo SHAMROCK-LAND 

seen. Jaunting-cars were drawn up in line, 
with drivers just begging one to go on a "glori- 
ious dhrive": chickens and geese and even goats 
appeared to roam about at will: "Patrick" 
was there with his Hibernian lip and his pipe; 
and stolid, thatched houses lined all the alley- 
ways which extended out even into the grassy 
meadows that surrounded the town on every 
side. 

I walked from the station up the walled-in 
roadway to the old town. All along the way 
were low-back donkey-cars, many of them 
loaded down with tall cans of milk which they 
were taking to the creameries. With the bare 
exception of Cork, Tipperary is the largest 
butter market of Ireland. The population of 
the town at this time is about six thousand, 
possibly three or four thousand less than it was 
sixty years ago. It is situated at the foot of 
the Slieve-na-muck hills in an undulating coun- 
try of the densest green. Meadows of lush 
grass extend in every direction as far as the eye 
can see. 

I explored one of the principal shops on a 
corner of the main street in quest of an um- 
brella. There seemed to be a full stock of 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 101 

goods in the establishment, but the wares were 
piled about and most unattractively displayed. 
The windows were small, and the day was 
cloudy and damp without, so there was gloom 
indeed in the search which we made for the 
umbrella. At length the young woman clerk 
found the box containing the umbrellas and 
laid them out for my inspection. They were 
of the oldest and crudest pattern, though it 
appeared that the fair young clerk did not 
know that much better ones could be found 
anywhere. 

It was raining and cold without, but nobody 
seemed to mind a little thing like that. I 
stopped a picturesque group of children on their 
way from school, and asked them if they ob- 
jected to my making a small picture of them 
with my kodak. They not only had no objec- 
tion, but were almost wild with enthusiasm 
over the project. Others came up, and in a 
short while they were joined by several old men 
and women who came up out of a neighboring 
alley. As I moved away from this place the 
crowd followed me, increasing as we went along. 
The old women were poorly dressed, with the 
usual somber shawl over the head, and heavy, 



102 SHAMROCK-LAND 

though badly-worn, shoes. One old man who 
hobbled up out of an alley with his cane was 
quite remarkable in his attire. His coat was 
cut according to a pattern that has long been 
ruled out of fashionable society, and his shoes 
were something enormous. The entire outfit 
was crowned with a derby hat of some style of 
the long ago, dented apparently with many an 
unlucky stroke from a shillalah or fist, and ac- 
tually green with a growth of damp Irish moss. 
Feeling somewhat embarrassed on account 
of the crowd which I had collected, I made an 
effort to get away from them; but the farther 
I went down the alley the larger the crowd be- 
came. If the whole lugubrious contingent had 
not furnished such a ludicrous scene, I believe 
I would have lost my courage. One might 
have thought, from the appearance of things, 
that a circus had come to town and that I was 
the parade. As soon, however, as I expressed 
my willingness to be left alone most of the 
crowd disappeared, but some of the schoolboys, 
like Peter of old, insisted upon following afar 
off, intent upon learning, if possible, just what 
the man with an American raincoat and a 
camera wished in Tipperary. 




< 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 103 

I was fortunate in reaching Limerick Junc- 
tion just in time for the train which took me 
to Goold's Cross, a station in County Tippe- 
rary, through which I had to pass on my way 
to Cashel, in the heart of the Golden Vale. 
When the train from Dublin reached Goold's 
Cross I observed that there were a number of 
what appeared to be excursion coaches attached, 
and when the passengers began to pour out of 
this train and board the train for Cashel I saw 
that in a number of cases John Barleycorn had 
done his work well. A guard of the Cashel 
train was particularly kind in placing me in a 
compartment all to myself, and thus in medita- 
tion and introspection I traveled to Cashel, 
listening to the boisterous songs that came forth 
from the train behind me. 

I was visiting Cashel not only because it is 
in the heart of the richest section of Ireland, 
but also because historically it is one of the most 
noted small towns of the island, and possesses 
some of the most famous ruins of the British 
Isles. No one knows just when the town was 
founded, or the noted Rock of Cashel first pos- 
sessed by civilized man, but the earliest histor- 
ical records indicate that it was an important 



104 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



settlement centuries before Christianity was 
introduced into the island. 

In those early days Ireland was covered with 
dense forests. The trees were of enormous 
size, and in the rich swampy places there were 
veritable jungles. The inhabitants, about 
whom very little is known, had built no bridges 
except a few unsubstantial wooden structures, 
and boats and barges had to be used in crossing 
the streams. The houses were of wood — a 
kind of wicker-work, enclosing in some cases 
walls of clay, which were surmounted with 
conical roofs with holes in the tops for the 
escape of the smoke. The banqueting-halls 
were sometimes made of rough, sawn boards, 
and covered with boughs or with sedge-straw 
now known as thatch. 

Wild animals were abundant. The red deer, 
the wild boar, the wolf, the fox, and the wild 
goat, with many smaller animals, were every- 
where to be found. In the woods and moun- 
tains there were eagles and ravens, while on the 
water-courses and along the seacoasts were 
innumerable swans, gulls, choughs, and seals. 

Even in the very early times the primitive 
inhabitants raised flax, wheat, and oats, and indi- 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 105 

cations are that they kept many hives of bees 
that gathered honey from the myriads of blos- 
soms of the wild-flowers of the island. With 
the honey they made mead which they drank 
freely, especially when they met together in 
the banqueting-halls to celebrate some victory. 
Traveling was done mostly afoot, but a kind 
of a drag was used for hauling, as well as a cart 
with solid disk wheels. From the very earliest 
times they grazed and milked the cow, and 
made her a standard of value, known as the 
"set," with plural form "senti." The pig, 
too, seems to have been with them from the 
beginning. Pickled pig, acorn fed, was always 
considered a great delicacy with the early 
Irelanders. 

So far as is known, the religion of the people 
was Druidism. Their places of worship were 
the stone cairns or " cromlechs " which may be 
found in parts of Ireland to-day. 

In those early days Cashel was founded. 
Tradition says its first settlement was in the 
reign of Core, son of Loo-ee. Immense forests 
then stretched over this vast limestone plain, and 
here two swineherds — Killarn, herdsman to 
the King of Ely, and Doordry, herdsman to 



106 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the King of Muskerry — came to feed their pigs 
upon the acorns in the woods. They continued 
in these woods about a quarter of a year, mak- 
ing their home on an immense limestone rock, 
three hundred feet high, in the very heart of 
the woods. Here it is said they had a vision, 
when a brilliant figure announced that this 
hill was consecrated on account of the future 
coming of a certain Patrick who should Chris- 
tianize Ireland. The masters of the swineherds, 
hearing their remarkable story of the vision, 
repaired to the spot and on the very top of the 
vast rock they built a palace called "Lis-na- 
cree," or the fort of heroes. Here the King of 
Munster received royal tribute, and the rock 
was thereafter called Cashel, from "Cios ail," 
the Rock of Tribute. Others, however, say 
the word is derived from "Cashiol," which in 
Celtic means the same as the Latin word cas- 
tellum. 

The train reached Cashel at sunset. Mount- 
ing a jaunting-car, I drove into the little town, 
or "city," one should call it, for- it was char- 
tered as a city by the King of England more 
than five hundred years ago. Rolling away on 
every side were meadows of grass, almost tree- 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 

A Cromlech, near Dundalk. 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPER ARY 107 

less, with white roads and stone walls. The 
great Rock of Cashel, crowned with ruins, 
towered above us, and the town of three 
thousand people lay at its base as if asleep 
in the gathering twilight. 

I was hospitably received at a little stone inn, 
and after supper I was taken to a number of 
the shops and other places of business and in- 
troduced to some of the leading men of the town. 
I found these gentlemen to be thoroughly in- 
formed upon all subjects relating to America, 
and invariably they were deeply interested in 
American affairs. They subscribed for the 
American newspapers and knew numbers of 
Irish people in the principal American cities. 
One of them was agent for a number of the 
transatlantic steamship lines, and he said that 
in the course of a year he generally sold hun- 
dreds of tickets to emigrants bound for 
New York and Boston. One gentleman, the 
proprietor of a hardware store, talked to me 
volubly about New York and other American 
cities, naming even obscure streets and describ- 
ing the leading places of interest. Upon my 
asking him when he had last visited the United 
States, he told me, with a smile upon his face, 



108 SHAMROCK-LAND 

that his feet had never rested upon American 
soil, but that he was so much interested in our 
great free country he almost knew it by heart. 
I could not have been more kindly and hos- 
pitably received anywhere than I was in this 
little Irish hamlet, shut out from the noise and 
bustle of the world. 

Early the next morning I set out in company 
with a most agreeable and kindly acquaint- 
ance, a citizen of Cashel, with the purpose of 
seeing the old town and exploring the hoary 
ruins. As we walked here and there in the 
streets, I saw many sights that interested and 
amused me. One old woman, who drove a 
very small donkey-cart from house to house, 
distributing milk, seemed to meet us at every 
turn. Her costume was decidedly picturesque. 
And in one case we saw an extremely old man 
sitting out in front of his doorway. I was told 
by my companion that he was over a hundred 
years old. He would never consent to having 
his picture made, and whenever he saw any one 
approaching with a camera or kodak he went 
into his house and shut the door. 

At length we reached the foot of the Rock 
of Cashel, and climbed slowly up the steep 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 109 

incline until we reached the summit. It was 
clear and windy and cold, and we kept our 
overcoats buttoned up closely about our ears. 
That same day the thermometer registered 
above ninety degrees in all parts of the United 
States. As we reached the top we met a genial 
old gate-keeper who, after passing courtesies, 
gave us an immense key which opened a gate 
leading into the ruins. A veritable wilderness 
of masonry lay about us. 

Upon this rock are ruins unsurpassed for 
interest anywhere in Europe. They consist 
of a cathedral, a richly decorated chapel, known 
as Cormac's chapel, interesting remains of 
immense monastic buildings, a round tower, 
and a great stone cross, in addition to the very 
old wall which surrounds the rock's summit. 
Perhaps all of these ruins belong to the Christian 
era, though undoubtedly the rock had been a 
heathen shrine long before Christianity was intro- 
duced into Ireland. Authorities assure us that 
there are records indicating that a synod was held 
upon the rock by St. Patrick, St. Declan, and 
St. Ailbe about the middle of the fifth century. 
Oengus, the king, at that time erected a church 
upon the rock to commemorate his conversion. 



no SHAMROCK-LAND 

If we except the round tower, about which 
we know too little, the oldest building upon 
the rock is Cormac's Chapel, supposed to have 
been erected by Cormac MacCulinan, King 
of Munster, who died in 908; or, more prob- 
ably, by Cormac MacCarthy, an ancestor of the 
builder of Blarney Castle, who was king and 
bishop about 1127. The cathedral was fin- 
ished about 1 1 69 by Donald O'Brien, King of 
Limerick. This building, except the wood- 
work, remains intact, and is very handsome 
with its lofty arches and groined roof. It is 
said that in 1495 the Earl of Kildare with his 
own hands set fire to the interior wood-work of 
this vast pile and reduced it to ashes. At his 
trial before the King of England he readily 
confessed his guilt, but said he would not have 
applied the torch to the sacred edifice if he had 
not been firmly of the opinion that his deadly 
enemy, Archbishop Creagh, was within at the 
time. Bishop Meath concluded his impeach- 
ment with the words, "Your Majesty, you see 
all Ireland cannot rule this gentleman!" King 
Henry replied, "Then he shall rule all Ireland!" 
And he forthwith appointed him to the lord- 
lieutenancy of the kingdom. 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 

Old Cross and Round Tower. 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY in 

Close beside and built into the cathedral is 
Cormac's Chapel. Its carvings are exquisite, 
though black with extreme age. Wonderful 
old tombs, with strange inscriptions in Latin 
and Gaelic, and fanciful carvings representing 
strange beings and gods and goddesses, almost 
heathen in character, would almost lead one 
to believe it was formerly a heathen shrine. 
These carvings and tombs are upon all sides of 
the chapel. The tomb of Cormac MacCarthy, 
lying there in the quiet of the mighty moun- 
tain, overlooking the Golden Vale, almost 
startles one with its strange impressiveness. 

The ruins of the monastic buildings remain 
near the cathedral; and in the same enclosure 
is the ancient cross, carved probably more than 
a thousand years ago. Below it is the corona- 
tion stone of the kings of Munster, the "Lia 
fail" of the south. Upon the stone are carvings 
in concentric circles, indicating that it was 
probably a Druid's altar. It is said to be the 
oldest stone-work of the place and certainly 
one of the most ancient carvings in Ireland. 

Beside the ruins, and crowning them all, is 
the round tower. This remains in a perfect 
state of preservation. The other buildings are 



1 1 2 SHAMROCK-LAND 

of limestone, but this is built of sandstone or 
granite. This tower is fifty-six feet in circum- 
ference and ninety feet in height. It has four 
apertures at the top, opening to the four points 
of the compass, and windows upon the sides, 
indicating that it was originally divided into 
five stories. The entrance to the tower is a 
doorway cut through the thick walls, twelve 
feet from the ground. 

It is not known when this tower was erected, 
as authorities upon archeology cannot agree 
upon the dates when these peculiar buildings 
arose throughout Ireland. At the present time 
there are about a hundred and eighteen round 
towers upon the island, of which many are in 
ruins. Only twenty are entire from founda- 
tion to conical roof. 

There has been utter disagreement in the 
conclusions of scholars as to the purpose for 
which these towers were built. Volumes have 
been written upon the subject, but it is not 
known even yet whether these strange buildings 
belong to the Christian era or are relics of 
paganism. Some writers strenuously insist that 
they were built long before Christianity was 
introduced into Ireland, and that they were 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 113 

erected to commemorate victories, or as monu- 
ments, and were used as places of retreat in 
times of danger. Some think they were erected 
during the early days of Irish Christianity, and 
were used as watch or bell towers by the monks. 
Excavations in a number of cases have revealed 
skeletons and charcoal beneath the towers, 
showing that possibly some of the towers were 
built over the graves of chieftains. 

For whatever purpose the towers were built, 
they were admirably adapted for places of re- 
treat at times of attack. Entrance to the tower 
was gained through the door usually situated 
from six to sixteen feet from the ground. The 
ladder was then drawn up into the tower, and 
as each successive floor or landing was reached, 
the ladder was taken up higher. The floors in 
some of the towers were constructed of wood; 
in others, of stone. Those besieged could rain 
rocks down upon the heads of the enemy at 
the foot of the tower and thus effectually pre- 
vent an entrance. There were no weapons in 
those days that could reach to the top of the 
tower. 

I examined the Cashel round tower as care- 
fully as I could, and through the door looked 



1 1 4 SHAMROCK-LAND 

up into the interior of the building. There 
was no sign of life anywhere except the chatter- 
ing of the jackdaws that had made their home 
in the very summit of the tower. 

After examining the strange cuddies, the 
damp, cool rooms, and the mysterious passage- 
ways in the lower part of the ruins, my com- 
panion and I sought the winding stairways of 
stone built spirally in the wall of the cathedral. 
I noticed the perfect fittings of the spiral steps, 
so skilfully cut in the dark ages. After many 
turns we came out upon the top of the walls. The 
flaming sunshine bathed the whole mass of ruins 
in yellow gold. I shall never forget the sight. 

The view from Eiffel Tower over Paris and 
the valley of the Seine reveals much of man's 
skill and suggests power; the panorama of 
mountain, valley, and battlefield from Stirling 
Castle in Scotland is one of boldness and 
majesty; but this prospect of the Golden Vale of 
Tipperary from the summit of the Rock of 
Cashel is a picture of infinite peace. 

To me it was glorious that June day to see 
the sunshine rest upon the earth. For twenty 
miles in every direction lay the valley, luscious 
and green beyond all that can be imagined. 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 115 

In the distance, and far away towards the north, 
and south, and west, lay mountains, blue as 
lazulite in the golden sunshine. Field beyond 
field, meadow against meadow, stone wall join- 
ing stone wall, hedge following hedge — a 
panorama it was of all that is fair on earth to 
look upon. The lush grass and the shamrock 
covered the earth like a carpet, while bloom- 
ing flowers, daisies, white clover, heather, haw- 
thorn, poppies, and pink wild roses breathed 
out their fragrance into the soft air that blew 
about us from the western hills. 

Sheep and cattle, like tiny specks in the dis- 
tance, grazed lazily on the sunny hillsides. 
Placid streams, glittering in the morning sun- 
shine, wound between the hills and circled 
about the villages and hamlets; and the white 
roads, lined with gray stone walls, stretched 
themselves over the hills and across the val- 
leys until they appeared like white ribbons in 
the hazy distance. Even here on the top of the 
lofty ruins, moss-covered and vine-clad, the 
scent of clover-blooms and myriads of sod- 
blossoms came: and the far-away tinkling of 
sheep-bells and the songs of building linnets 
told a story of infinite tenderness. 



u6 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Many miles away, towards the northeast, 
were the Devil's Bit Mountains which have a 
peculiar formation — a depression in a long, 
lofty range which appears to have been cut or 
bitten out by the teeth of some gigantic mouth. 
The legend current in that country is that the 
devil, in days of old, was passing those moun- 
tains, and becoming offended at the general 
perversity of mankind, took his spite out by 
biting a piece out of the top of the mountains 
and dropping it in the heart of the valley, leav- 
ing it there to be known as the Rock of Cashel. 
The driver who told me this story insisted 
that many of the old folks still believe this tale, 
but, said he, "Don't mintion it as coming from 
me, but I've always had my doubts about it." 

Coming down from the rock, I was pointed 
to Hore Abbey, an immense ruin a quarter of 
a mile away. Here David MacCarvill, dream- 
ing that the Benedictines wished to cut off his 
head, changed it into an abbey for the Cis- 
tercian order. This was done in 1272. To- 
day the pile of ruins is surrounded by fields of 
grass. 

I stood upon the spot where tradition says 
St. Patrick stood when he baptized Oengus, 




> 



o 



3 > 



GOLDEN VALE OF TIPPERARY 117 

son of King Natfraitch, nearly fifteen hundred 
years ago. This was the first conversion from 
heathendom in south Ireland. They say that 
when the baptism took place, after the young 
man had renounced heathenism and signified 
his desire to embrace the Christian faith, the 
spike of St. Patrick's crozier passed through 
Oengus' foot and remained there through the 
long ceremony. The good saint at length 
completed the rite, looked down and discov- 
ered the painful condition of his friend and royal 
convert, and was much distressed that the acci- 
dent should have happened. "Why didst thou 
not tell me?" he asked the young man. "Ah! 
father," he replied, "I thought it was a part of 
the holy rite!" "Then," said the good saint, 
"thou shalt have thy reward. Not one of thy 
successors to the throne of Cashel shall die of 
a wound from to-day forever!" And it is said 
to this day in Cashel that twenty-seven kings 
in succession ruled over Cashel, all of them 
"belonging to the race of Ailill and Oengus 
until the time of Cenn-gecan, slain a.d. 897." 



CHAPTER V 

ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 

My driver smoked his pipe and gazed dream- 
ily across the fields. Just over the stone walls, 
in cottage yards, little barefoot children played 
in the morning sunshine, and chickens, wallow- 
ing and stretching their wings, scratched the 
warm, damp earth up into their feathers. Pigs 
nosed about the chimney-corners and the low 
open doorways. Out on the roadside strings 
of geese grazed the fresh green grass, resenting, 
with protruding necks, the too familiar ap- 
proach of a stray dog or a wandering goat. The 
warm sunshine clung to the damp, steaming 
earth. Cattle and sheep grazed lazily in the 
meadows, and low-back donkey-cars crawled 
slowly along the old gray roadways. From 
the tree-tops came the chatter of jackdaws 
and the cawing of crows, and linnets sang in 
the hawthorn hedges which divided the fields. 

Far away in the south lay the Comeragh 
Mountains, half-covered with summer haze; 

nS 




H 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 119 

on the west, and in the distance, was the Galtee 
range; and far, far beyond, revealing a faint 
outline of opaline blue, lay the round, grass- 
covered Ballyhoura Hills. About us on every 
side was the rich lusciousness of the Golden 
Vale of Tipperary. 

"Why so silent ?" I asked my driver. "Tell 
me about those dreams." 

"Och!" said he, drawing himself up, "I'm 
draming of the olden days whin this counthry 
was a land fit to live in. They were happy 
days! People lived here in dhroves. All these 
grassy fields were planted in potatoes, and wheat, 
and oats, and there was work a-plinty for all 
to do. Men and women worked together in 
the fields, weeding and spading potatoes or 
reaping and binding the grain. Tremindous 
crops were raised, and there were grate crowds 
of men and women to do the work. 

"Miny the summer Sunday have I sat in 
front of Patrick Millikin's in Cashel and 
watched the crowds coming in from the sur- 
rounding countryside to be hired. For Sunday, 
you know, is hiring-day in Ireland. Mass first, 
then hiring in the market-place. They came 
in from iverywhere, grate crowds of men and 



120 SHAMROCK-LAND 

women and boys. They brought with them 
their spades for working and digging potatoes 
and reap-hooks for the harvest fields. 

"The farmers, miny of them very rich gintle- 
men, stood upon an elevation or sat upon their 
horses and called aloud their needs and the 
wages they would pay; and hundreds of voices 
answered from the crowds. Upon the day 
appointed the laborers would report for duty 
in the fields. 

"Och! wirrasthrue! but those good old days 
are gone. Now there is stagnation iverywhere 
throughout the Golden Vale. The crops are 
small indade, the boys and girls have gone off 
to Amuriky, and in ivery direction you turn 
there is nothing but grass, grass, grass!" 

I questioned him further in regard to the 
hiring days and the great crowds that came to- 
gether to make contracts for work. Much of 
the hiring, he told me, was done in March, at 
the first breaking of spring, before the crops 
had been planted; but in general every Sunday 
was a hiring day. When such crowds got to- 
gether fights would almost invariably occur, 
many of them strenuous in the extreme, though 
there resulted but few fatalities. The public 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 121 

houses were kept wide open, and all who had 
the price could get what they wanted to drink. 
Village champions would come prepared for 
conflict. No gathering of the kind was com- 
plete without one or more "good, shtrong 
fights." Seldom were firearms or metallic 
weapons used; and 'whenever a fight occurred 
in the crowd reap-hooks were held high in the 
air and carried swiftly out of the melee so that 
no one might either accidentally or intention- 
ally be cut to pieces. 

The weapon which was most used in such 
fights was the hard, naked fist; but nearly 
every Irishman possessed a "shillalah," a wooden 
staff or club which was capable of doing con- 
siderable execution. This stick might almost 
be termed the national weapon of Ireland. It 
derives its name from a famous body of woods 
near Arklow in county Wickiow, where the 
best oaks and blackthorns grew. The "shil- 
lalah" proper is a club about three feet in length, 
but there is a shorter and stouter weapon with 
a rough knot or an enlarged root on the end 
called the "kippeen"; and there is a still larger 
one, sometimes even eight or ten feet in length, 
known as the "wattle." 



122 SHAMROCK-LAND 

The "kippeen" or "shillalah" was carefully 
made and fondly tempered by the owner, who 
was as careful to have it "fit the hand" as a 
tennis player is to have the right "hang" or 
"balance" in his racket. In tempering his 
weapon the owner sometimes used slaked lime, 
or he rubbed it over repeatedly with butter and 
placed it "up the chimney" where it was 
allowed to hang in the peat-smoke for several 
months. After tempering it well the owner 
often carved lucky signs or Hibernian emblems 
upon his weapon, and he took care to make it 
his constant companion at every fair, market- 
day concourse, or political gathering. These 
picturesque clubs are not infrequently found 
throughout rural Ireland to-day; and when the 
occasion justifies it, the owners can use them 
with all the strength and skill which charac- 
terized the fights of the olden days. 

In the village fights on fair or market days in 
olden times the women frequently took a more or 
less active part, more often as the instigator, 
but sometimes actually as a combatant. Some 
of the more pugnacious kinds would use a long 
and heavy woolen stocking with a rough stone 
in the foot which was flung right and left in a 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 123 

hostile crowd with great effectiveness. Men 
were supposed never to strike the women ex- 
cept by accident, though when a stout woman, 
armed with a stoned stocking, made herself 
rather objectionable by the promiscuous use 
of her unusual weapon in a crowd, sometimes 
an "accident" would happen to her in the na- 
ture of a back-handed shillalah stroke which 
would place her hors de combat. 

More often the women stirred up the men to 
fight, and urged them on. Sometimes a frac- 
tious old hag would exert herself to the utmost 
to bring about a fight between her party and 
the rival faction, even going so far as to go up 
and call each enemy a coward or a poltroon in 
his very teeth, and if this did not have the de- 
sired effect, she spit in their faces and threw 
dirt in their eyes. 

Factional fights have been uncommon in 
Ireland for many years. An Irishman explain- 
ing this said: "The boys are beginning to talk 
about them as things they have seen — like a 
show or a giant. We ask each other how we 
were ever drawn into them, and what brought 
them about, and the one answer is, whisky! 
No gun will go off until it is primed, and sure 



124 SHAMROCK-LAND 

in fights whisky is the priming. That made 
more orphans and widows than the fever and 
starvation." 

My driver became quiet and gloomy when- 
ever he spoke of the great numbers of young 
men and women who had left Tipperary, Kil- 
kenny, Limerick, and Kerry for America. The 
rich lands which they had worked, and upon 
which they had raised great crops of wheat, 
oats, barley, potatoes, and turnips, were now 
turned out in pastures and hay-fields. The 
people had gone out and the cattle and sheep 
had taken their places. 

His observations agreed with the facts as 
given by the official census. In the year 1831 
county Tipperary had a population of 402,363. 
By 1 87 1 the number of the county's inhabitants 
had decreased to 216,713; and the census of 
1 901 revealed a population of 159,754. In 
other words, the population in 1831 was 254 
to the square mile; in 1901 it was 100. It is 
scarcely a wonder that such a tremendous de- 
crease in population in three quarters of a 
century should have brought about stagnation 
in agriculture and every other pursuit requiring 
labor. 




hJ 



< 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPER ARY 125 

That section of Ireland generally known as 
the Golden Vale comprises a large part of county 
Tipperary, extends westwardly through the 
center of county Limerick, and continues itself 
through northern county Kerry to the Atlantic 
Ocean. Limerick, therefore, is in soil one of 
the richest counties in Ireland. All kinds of 
crops may be raised, and the land lies well for 
cultivation. Yet the county has in seventy years 
decreased greatly in population. In 1831 there 
were 248,000 people in the county; in 1901 the 
census returned only 145,018. So Kerry also 
decreased from 250,000 in 1831 to 165,000 in 
1901. 

Thus all through south Ireland the people 
have been emigrating by the thousands, leaving 
the affairs of the country in the hands of those 
who for one reason or another have been actu- 
ally unable to get away. 

The depopulation of south Ireland has had 
a rather remarkable effect upon the outward 
appearance of the country. In some countries, 
certainly in many parts of the United States, 
land formerly cultivated and abandoned reverts 
to a production of useless scrubby undergrowth, 
pines and broomsedge. In south Ireland, with 



126 SHAMROCK-LAND 

its rich limestone soil, luscious grass takes pos- 
session of every uncultivated field. There is 
no extraneous growth whatever, except perhaps 
some sedge in the marshes and bracken upon 
the mountains. Thus, while the depopulation 
continues, agricultural statistics reveal a yearly 
increase in the number of sheep and cattle in 
this country. And in some respects the coun- 
try becomes more beautiful as the grass covers 
all the hills and valleys. 

It is the object of nearly all the reform soci- 
eties, more especially the Congested Districts 
Board, to induce the people to resume the in- 
tensive cultivation of the soil by modern methods, 
and to check the tendency towards the aban- 
donment of the land to the cattle and sheep. 
For over half a century the Government of the 
United Kingdom has been trying to introduce 
methods for the improvement of the Irish peas- 
ant's conditions. Some of the projects have 
succeeded fairly well, though some of them have 
failed. The Irish themselves have not always 
kindly accepted these belated offers of help 
from the Government, but have been disposed 
to resent innovations and reforms as interfer- 
ences with their customs and invasions of their 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 127 

rights. Nevertheless, the indefatigable efforts 
of these societies have resulted in much im- 
provement in the Irish peasant's condition. 

That June day as we drove along the Tip- 
perary roads the rich grassy fields lay in all their 
luxuriancy about us. Now and then we passed 
on the roadside a thatched cottage of the usual 
type — bare of all ornament without and devoid 
of any means of comfort within. One of the 
truly remarkable things in south Ireland is the 
neglected home. Even when the laborer or 
farmer or workman, as the case may be, can 
afford it, he never thinks of making his home a 
more attractive place, but allows it to remain 
gloomy and uncomfortable within and without. 
This peculiarity of the native Irishman causes 
travelers to characterize him as thriftless or 
lazy. As a matter of fact, the houses are of a 
type that existed almost everywhere in the Brit- 
ish Isles a century or more ago. Changes and 
reforms proceed but slowly in Ireland. The 
Irishman's peculiarity of temperament no doubt 
has much to do with this. 

In his charming book of sketches, entitled, 
" To-day and To-morrow in Ireland," Mr. 
Stephen Gwynn says: "Workers agree that 



i 2 8 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the task of getting the Irish peasant to make a 
new departure by himself is all but hopeless; 
he will do what his father did before him and 
his neighbors do beside him. The deterrent 
is not idleness, but the fear of ridicule which 
has been a power in the land since the days — 
fifteen centuries ago — when the order of bards 
exercised all but a tyranny in the country by the 
gift of satire. On the other hand, the Irish 
nation seems to lend itself strangely to innova- 
tions by groups, and there is no part of the Brit- 
ish Isles where co-operation can show such 
surprising results. But these results have been 
attained by men who realize that you can do 
nothing with the Irish by laughing at them, 
nor by scolding them, nor can you radically 
change their nature. What they have done 
has been to develop the Irish quickness on its 
own lines, making full allowance for the pre- 
judices and superstitions of the people, and 
realizing that with all these drawbacks — if 
one must call them drawbacks — the people 
are the most valuable belonging of the country." 
Mr. Michael J. F. McCarthy, in a lecture 
which he delivered frequently in Ireland, en- 
titled, "North and South; Contrasts in Char- 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPER ARY 129 

acter," corroborates the statement that the 
Irish are abnormally afraid of ridicule and a 
certain kind of " public opinion." Says he: "A 
point of contrast between the North and the 
South is to be found in the sensitiveness of the 
people to what is called 'public opinion.' . . . 
I have known hundreds of people who were 
driven to distraction at various periods of their 
lives by the gossip of their neighbors, or, as it 
is more commonly called, public opinion. . . . 
There is, perhaps, nothing which so disturbs 
the southern Irishman as ridicule or disap- 
proval. " 

One should not forget, however, that sensi- 
tiveness is usually a characteristic of emotional 
people, and is more often than not a mark of 
refinement and tenderness of heart. There are 
few who dispute that, despite some belligerent 
tendencies, the Irish are among the kindest and 
sweetest tempered people in the world. 

Whenever the opportunity was presented to 
me I talked to Irishmen about the fairies that 
are supposed still to inhabit all parts of Ireland. 
My driver laughed when I asked him about 
the fairies, but admitted that there were many 
in Ireland who still believe in "the good people." 



130 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



Sometimes, he told me, a whitethorn bush is 
allowed to grow immediately in front of a cot- 
tage doorway, actually blocking the entrance, 
yet no one would dare interfere with it. The 
occupants of the cottage believed it was a 
"gentle bush," and belonged to the fairies, 
and the one who harmed it would himself be 
destroyed. In western Ireland belief in the 
fairies was rather more prevalent than else- 
where in the country, but still there were many 
in Tipperary who would not dare cut down a 
gentle bush or block up a fairy path. There 
were paths through the grass of the meadows 
over which fairies traveled, and wo to those 
who were sacrilegious enough to get in the 
way of these good little people. Some houses 
had been built by a landlord almost directly 
in the way of a well-known fairy path, and as 
soon as the houses were occupied by tenants 
they were visited with sickness and a number 
of deaths occurred. The houses at length 
became tenantless. 

Most of the Irish, even though still believing 
in fairies to a certain extent, are rather reluc- 
tant to impart these tales to a stranger; for it 
is considered unlucky to talk about the "good 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 131 

people" without due respect; and the fear of 
ridicule is implanted deeply in every Irishman's 
mind. But in all parts of Ireland where the 
old Irish or Gaelic is spoken, and in some 
parts where it has long been superseded by 
English, every man, woman, and child believes 
in the existence of a fairy folk. The soil is 
peopled by wizards and goblins and fantastic 
creatures of all kinds who have nothing to do 
with the common laws of existence. Every 
stream, gnarled old tree, lake, or mountain 
peak, has its stories and memories of mysterious 
beings who do not belong to earth. The Irish 
peasant delights to talk about the natural ob- 
jects near his home, and he can relate strings 
of legends about the stream which flows near 
by, or the lake in his neighborhood, or the steep 
hillside behind his cottage. 

The old forts, or "raths," are invariably asso- 
ciated in the Irishman's mind with fairies. 
These ancient raths were built of earth upon 
hilltops, and were surrounded with deep fosses 
and ramparts. Their history is lost in the clouds 
and mists of the remote past, but wherever such 
an old remain exists to-day it is a source of 
unending strings of legends. There is nothing 



132 SHAMROCK-LAND 

which an Irishman regards with more super- 
stitious dread than the rath. He believes it 
is the special property of the fairies, and it 
would be impossible to find a laborer who 
would be tempted to thrust his spade into such 
a spirit nest. As a consequence of this super- 
stition, the raths exist in their entirety in many 
parts of Ireland to-day; and sometimes one may 
be found even in the center of a rich meadow. 
Many stories are told of punishments which 
have followed attempts to open or level these 
raths, and of scenes and objects witnessed by 
persons who have unconsciously slept beside 
them or passed them in the dead of night. 

Sometimes the Irish fairies are useful and 
helpful, sometimes harmful; but they must all 
in some way be propitiated. For instance, 
when a cow is milked, the first few drains must 
be spilled upon the ground for the fairies, else 
the wrath of the "good people" is incurred. 
Many is the story of the peasantry as to how 
this man was beaten or that man warned, or 
of how another "saw the gentry" and "never 
did good after," but pined away in a dream. 

Students of racial characteristics and of folk- 
lore say the remarkable belief in fairies in Ire- 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 133 

land is due not only to the intensely emotional 
and imaginative natures of the Irish, but also 
to the fact that it is a very misty land, and 
almost every day and night the clouds and fogs 
and mists cling to the earth and assume strange 
forms which are easily misinterpreted by an 
imaginative and primitive people. 

I asked my driver where the fairies were sup- 
posed chiefly to dwell. He said they lived 
amongst the rocks in the woods, upon the sum- 
mits of the hills, in the whitethorn bushes, 
beside and under the old bridges of stone, and 
even in the "wather of the strames." He 
asked me if I had ever heard the story of the 
Leprahawn, or the Clericaune, as some people 
called him. I told him I had not. 

"Hush!" said he. "See yonder dense little 
wood before us, tangled with birch, and holly 
and spruce ? They say he lives there in the 
deep shades, though few there be who go there 
to search for him. Some of the ould people 
say they have seen him there at work. He 
makes shoes for the fairies, and he is also their 
miller. They say ye can hear his hammer 
ringing against his lapstone as he nails soles 
upon the shoes. He comes out on foine aven- 



134 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



ings at sunset and bathes himself in the sunshine 
which falls on the western grassy hillside. Ah! 
he is rich, far richer than the American mil- 
lionaires!" 

If one caught this little fairy miller and shoe- 
maker and held him fast, he said he would 
reveal the situation of his treasure-house. But 
those who had caught him — and he had at 
times been caught — had always allowed him 
to get away. One must always keep his eyes 
upon the Clericaune, for if he removes his eyes 
from him for a moment he is gone. If, however, 
he is caught and held firmly for a long time he 
will ask what is desired of him, "the penny 
purse, the shilling purse, or the two thousand 
purse." If one says "the penny purse," the 
Clericaune will conduct him to the spot where 
the treasure lies. But no one as yet has ever 
found the treasure. 

And how exceedingly rich he was! "Grate 
crocks of gold!" all buried there in the raths, 
with nothing but the ghosts keeping guard 
over them. Yet if one could but dream about 
the treasure three nights in succession, and tell 
no one about it, he could walk "shtrait to the 
shpot" and get the gold and diamonds. 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 135 

"Did you ever have three successive dreams 
of the buried riches?" I asked him. 

He laughed and told me he had not; but 
once when he was a child and "raally belaved" 
in fairies he had "two splindid drames" of it. 
In his dreams there were long rows of heavy 
black pots full of gold coins and all kinds of 
strange-looking golden cups and plates; and 
diamonds and pearls hung glistening on golden 
strings. After the second dream, which was 
the exact counterpart of the first, he thought 
surely the treasure was his, but he took care to 
say nothing about it to anybody. On the third 
night shortly after he went to bed a storm arose 
in the southwest and swept up from the Kerry 
coast. The wind howled down the chimney, 
scattering the smoldering turf about the hearth 
and all night long he "dramed and dramed and 
dramed like a spalpeen" that a Banshee was 
wailing out in the howling storm. "Niver 
wanst came a vision of the jewels and gold!" 

Besides the Leprahawn, or Clericaune, or 
Luracawn, as he is variously called, there are 
two other "spirits" peculiar to Ireland, the 
Pooka and the Banshee. The Pooka is a wild 
mule or horse which flies about at night search- 



136 SHAMROCK-LAND 

ing for a rider. Overtaking one who has been 
out dissipating, the Pooka in some manner gets 
him upon his back and carries him like light- 
ning over miles and miles of strange territory, 
dropping him at morning at some spot near 
the starting-point decidedly more dead than 
alive. The Pooka is also supposed to play 
many tricks, one of which is to spoil all the 
blackberries on Michaelmas night, the twenty- 
ninth of September, after which date no Irish 
boy will dare eat a berry, however fresh or 
tempting the fruit may look or however hungry 
he may be. 

The Banshee is the most noted of all the Irish 
superstitions. This spirit is supposed to be in 
the form of an old woman, thinly attired in 
white, with ragged white locks, and unmistak- 
able voice, who with her strange unearthly 
screams announces to a family the approach- 
ing death of one of its members. The pecul- 
iarly mournful wail is always given at night, 
and while it somewhat resembles the wind it is 
distinctly a supernatural voice which cannot 
be mistaken by one who hears it. Some of the 
weird stories of the Banshee which are told by 
the Irish peasants are enough to make one 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 

"The Top o' the Morning to Ye, Sir, and Welcome." 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 137 

shudder. This strange spirit follows all the 
older Irish families, and it is strongly asserted 
that no death has ever occurred in those fam- 
ilies which have descended from Brian Boru 
without a previous announcement of the Ban- 
shee. 

Among the educated Irish such superstitions 
are no longer believed, still there are those who 
declare that the older belief in fairies and the 
supernatural has had a further development in 
the average southern Irishman's slavish obedi- 
ence to the priest whom he is said to follow with 
genuinely superstitious dread. The power of 
the priest has undoubtedly been grossly exag- 
gerated by hostile and partisan writers, though 
it is unquestionably true that the parish priest 
still has a great influence over his parishioners. 
Some of the more ignorant and superstitious 
believe the priest can do anything — even per- 
form miracles and send souls to hell. 

An Irish story, told by the Irish themselves, 
will illustrate how at least some of the peas- 
antry still estimate the power and ability of the 
priests. 

Patrick Mulligan had been drinking heavily. 
His family had been reduced to crusts and rags, 



138 SHAMROCK-LAND 

and his parish dues had for a long time remained 
in arrears. The priest visited his untidy cot- 
tage one day and admonished him severely: 

"Patrick, this must stop! Too much drink 
will ruin any man. Here your family is in 
poverty and your dues unpaid. Get drunk 
just one more time and I'll turn ye into a rat!" 
The priest went away chuckling, but the threat 
had an immediate effect upon Patrick. For 
three weeks he was the soberest and the most 
industrious man in the parish. Not one drop 
did he touch — not even of porter — but worked 
every day from the rising to the setting of the 
sun, weeding potatoes and mowing hay. 

When the Tipperary pig fair came off Pat- 
rick went down with some pigs, and after making 
a successful trade he was induced by an old 
companion to take " jist a dhrop f'r th' sake of 
ould toimes." It proved his undoing. He went 
home drunk; but before he reached his door- 
way remorse had smitten him. He remem- 
bered the priest's threat to turn him into a rat. 

"Och! Biddy," he said, as he entered the 
door, "I've gone and done it! I've brought it 
upon me! Father O'Flaherty tould me he would 
turn me into a rat! Biddy, I feel th* change 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPER ARY 139 

a-coming now! I feel my eyes a-getting beady 
and my nose a-getting sharp! Yis, and I be- 
lave the long side-whiskers are a-coming, too! 

Biddy, f'r th' sake of Hiven, if ye love me, 
kape yer eyes on th' cat!" 

Driving westward, we came in sight of a 
singular elevation, an artificial mound of earth, 
turf-covered, rising perhaps seventy feet above 
the summit of the hill upon which it was 
constructed. I was told it was the Moat of 
Knockgraffon, one of the most noted raths in 
all Ireland. This ancient fort is a treasury of 
legendary lore. The ancient castle which for- 
merly stood at its base was erected in the year 
1 1 08; tradition says that eighteen of the early 
kings of Munster were born and reared within 
its walls. From the remarkable appearance of 
the earthworks and the ruins of the old castle 

1 thought it scarcely strange that the peasants 
throughout that portion of Tipperary should 
have connected the place with weird stories 
and strange legends. 

We passed innumerable meadows where cattle 
and sheep grazed in the sunshine. The roads 
were unusually bare of travelers. Perhaps it 
was a good day for labor in the fields and all 



1 4 o SHAMROCK-LAND 

the farmers and laborers were at work. Now 
and then we met a donkey-cart in the road with 
its driver dreaming and smoking his pipe. 
Thatched cottages of stone and mud, white- 
washed, were scattered irregularly all over the 
face of the country. A thin line of smoke came 
from some of the chimneys, showing that per- 
haps a meal was preparing within. 

We came at length to a little village stretched 
along on both sides of the road, and, indeed, 
on both sides of the river Suir, which the road 
crosses at this point. The bridge across the 
Suir is very old and replete with legend and 
history. Upon it William III is said to have 
signed the charter of the "City of Cashel" in 
the year 1690. My driver said the village was 
called Golden, and the bridge was known as 
the Golden Bridge. Near by we saw the remains 
of an old round tower. 

After crossing the bridge we turned northward, 
and after traveling for some time we came to 
an arched gateway of stone, covered with ivy 
from the ground to the summit, perhaps sixty 
or seventy feet in the air. I was told that this 
was once the entrance to a great and rich estate 
which had gone down to decay. Although the 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 141 

soil appeared to be unusually fertile, most of 
the old places which we passed had degenerated 
quite into ruins. One old castle which I wished 
to examine had to be approached between the 
barbed wires of a newly stretched fence; and 
the next great house, which we had to go some 
distance out of our course to see, was situated 
out in the center of a grassy field where large 
numbers of cattle and sheep grazed the rich 
grass. 

On the roadside we saw a man apparently 
thirty years of age with a crude hammer break- 
ing limestone rocks for mending the road. We 
stopped and engaged him in conversation. He 
was in his shirt sleeves, with open vest, and a 
much-battered derby hat upon his head. While 
we talked about the roads and the stones and 
other subjects which I was able immediately 
to introduce, a tall, lanky youth of listless man- 
ner strolled out from behind a dwindling hay- 
stack near by, and stood with hands behind 
him listening to what we said. He wore a cap 
and an exceedingly ill-fitting suit of clothes, and 
very coarse, heavy shoes. Very soon a quiet 
old woman, with a black cloth over her head, 
came out of her little cottage or hut near by, 



142 SHAMROCK-LAND 

and also began to talk with us. I judged that 
the three lived there alone, and that the old 
woman was the mother of the two men. All 
of the three were listless and apathetic, though 
they were kindly disposed, and appeared to be 
much interested in me because I was an Amer- 
ican. 

The older of the two men asked me a number 
of questions about the United States, saying 
that he had long wished to cross the ocean, but 
that he had not up to that time been able to do 
so. He supposed he would be able to get better 
wages in America than he was getting on a Tip- 
perary roadside breaking limestone rocks. He 
was constantly hoping that something would 
turn up yet and give him a chance to go. I 
noticed the pained expression upon the old 
woman's face as her son talked about leaving 
the old home. She was not quite so stout and 
large as the average Irish peasant woman, and 
there was a trace of refinement in her timid old 
face. 

The hut in which they lived was but a short 
distance away in a little yard enclosed with 
loosely piled walls of stone. A dog, apparently 
a cur, had followed the old woman out to the 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 

An Irish Country Store. 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 143 

roadside, and while we were talking the family 
goat came up. I asked if they would allow me 
to make a small picture with my kodak of the 
home and its family. They readily assented, 
and we all went around to the front of the little 
home where they all, the two men, the old lady, 
the dog and the goat, posed in a group for me. 
It was all done with the gravity and seriousness 
which attends a funeral, and to me the whole 
scene was pathetic in the extreme. 

The surroundings were pitifully and painfully 
bare. The little hut was of the usual type — 
walls of mixed mud and stone, white-washed, a 
roof of straw or thatch four or five inches thick, 
tied down with ropes of grass. The eaves were 
not more than five or six feet from the ground. 
There was no porch nor awning, but the door 
was a bare opening through the walls of mud 
and stone, on a level with the ground. In front 
of the door were some rough flat stones, lying 
loose upon the top of the ground ; and on each 
side of the door was a window of four panes of 
glass, each eight by ten inches in size. Within 
the hut it was damp and gloomy, only a few 
rays of light finding their way through the small 
windows. The floor was of rough stones. The 



i 4 4 SHAMROCK-LAND 

furniture was scanty and very old. A large old 
pot hung suspended from hooks in a wide- 
mouthed chimney above a smoldering fire of turf. 
A flitch of bacon hung from a bare rafter; and a 
hen with one or two half-naked chickens picked 
about the floor. The goat and the dog had 
ready access to the room, and roamed in and 
out as they pleased. 

I bade the gloomy-faced old woman good-by 
and spoke a word of cheer to her two sons, 
barely being able to keep back a tear at the 
thought of their pitiful lot in life. And yet, I 
thought, they had never known anything better; 
and there were thousands of others there in 
the rich Golden Vale who lived, like them, in 
hopeless poverty. 

It was nearly five o'clock in the afternoon 
when we reached the woods which surrounded 
the station at Dundrum, on the Great South 
and Western Railroad. There was no one in 
sight in any direction when I bade my driver 
good-by on the little platform. Going inside, 
I found the agent, an intelligent young man, in 
his office. He was kindly in his manners, and 
disposed to be talkative. He asked me many 
questions about America, and wished to know 



ON A JAUNTING-CAR IN TIPPERARY 145 

more than I was able to tell him of the opera- 
tions of the American railroads. He rather de- 
plored the Irish rush to America, and expressed 
the opinion that the American climate did not 
altogether agree with the Irish people. He had 
observed that the girls who went over with heavy 
shoes and shawled heads had stout forms and 
rosy cheeks, but when four or five years later 
t'hey came back to visit the old home they had 
their hair done up high on their heads, wore a 
hat with plumes, and walked upon high-heeled 
shoes, and sometimes even wore long kid gloves. 
But nevertheless, that bloom upon the face was 
lacking, and they were invariably pale and 
sallow as though they had come from a bed of 
sickness. There was something about Amer- 
ica, he thought, that took the color from the 
face. 

He booked me for the next train which he 
assured me would be decidedly to my liking, 
for it was the "American Express," composed 
of corridor cars entirely. When I boarded the 
train he was at hand to help me with my bag- 
gage. When I glanced back he waved me a 
farewell from the cleanly-swept concrete plat- 
form. 



i 4 6 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Though it was in a sense a corridor train, en- 
trance to the coaches had to be made from the 
sides, and the cars were small and the seats hard 
and uncomfortable. The passengers within, 
however, were interesting, and even before I 
desired it we had reached Limerick Junction, 
where I boarded another train for the ancient 
city of Limerick. When I went from the train 
and looked about me for an omnibus or a jaunt- 
ing-car I found that the rain was falling steadily, 
and by the time I had become settled in a hotel 
a great gloom of mist had settled down over 
the "City of the Violated Treaty." 



CHAPTER VI 

WITH THE PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 

Rap! Rap! Rap! It sounded faintly at first 
— something vague and mysterious and far 
away. Rap! Rap! Rap! It was louder this 
time and had become more tangible and real. 
Rap! Rap! Rap! Rap! Rap! This time it was 
unmistakable; for consciousness had returned, 
and I managed in some way to look out from 
some great billows of loosely enclosed feathers 
just as a quizzical face set upon a pair of heavy 
square shoulders peered in at the door. 

"Och! sir, and here ye are shtill abed, and you, 
too, who wished to shmell the dew frish upon 
the shamrocks! Bedad, sir, and the morning 
is foine and broight, the wind from the south, 
and not a cloud in the sky! Indade, sir, and 
ye don't know what ye're missing!" 

It was Boots; and I remembered distinctly 
just then that I had told him the night before, 
the very last thing before blowing out the tallow 

dip, that I would like to be awakened early so 

147 



148 SHAMROCK-LAND 

that I might have a morning walk across the 
Irish hills. 

Boots was just as obliging and as agreeable 
as it is possible for a kind-hearted Irishman to 
be; and that is saying much indeed. Boots was 
not only "boots" in the little stone inn with 
which he was identified, he was also porter, 
and not infrequently waiter, and sometimes, 
though he confessed he knew very little about 
horses, he was actually called upon to be jaunt- 
ing-car driver. That suit of green livery which 
he wore was one of the landmarks of the little 
inland Irish town; and, though somewhat frayed 
and faded from long usage, it agreed with him 
to a nicety. In fact, one could hardly have 
decided, in gazing upon the pleasing combina- 
tion, whether the clothes had been made for 
Boots or Boots for the clothes. And that face 
of his was fortune enough for any ordinary 
country-town hotel. 

After Boots, at my solicitation, had talked to 
me awhile about the weather, and the coming 
pig-fair, and had expressed himself upon several 
matters of local gossip, he hurried down-stairs 
to attend to some of his multiform duties about 
the little inn with which he had been connected 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 149 

from childhood: I was left to dress and come 
down when I pleased. 

My room was very old-fashioned in arrange- 
ment as well as in appointment. Pictures of 
Grattan and Parnell hung on one side, and on 
the other were fanciful engravings of St. Patrick 
and St. Bridget. An old rosewood dresser stood 
in one corner of the room, and in the corner 
near the window there was a queer little wash- 
stand upon which there was a great washbowl 
decorated with green shamrocks, and a pitcher, 
or "joog" as Boots called it, filled with cool 
water just from the well. 

While washing I looked out of the little win- 
dow into the yard which was shaded by a single 
bending yew-tree. Close by ran the village 
street. There were already signs of life to be 
observed, for donkey-cars were moving hither 
and thither, delivering produce and turf, and 
there were some pedestrians upon the smooth 
slick sidewalks. A long string of geese, chatter- 
ing in genuine goose fashion, were on their 
way to a near-by grassy hillside which rose 
abruptly from a little cross street, and upon 
which a donkey and some calves were already 
grazing contentedly in the morning sunshine. 



150 SHAMROCK LAND 

When at length I reached the dining-room 
my hostess, a hale and hearty old lady with a 
lace cap upon her head, sat knitting by the open 
fireplace. A table that would give accommo- 
dation to perhaps ten or twelve persons was set 
in the middle of the room. Upon it was a snowy 
table-cloth, a great loaf of white bread, two rolls 
of rich yellow butter, a big bowl of orange mar- 
malade, and two crisply roasted ducks lying 
upon a platter. On one side of the table sat 
a girl of perhaps twenty-two years of age, rosy- 
cheeked, blue-eyed, red-mouthed, with a pair of 
glasses fastened rather saucily upon her well- 
shaped nose. She was talking and laughing in 
the best of humor, and did not appear at all 
to resent the intrusion of a stranger even though 
he might be an American. 

In a few minutes two young men came in and 
took their seats at the table, bubbling over the 
while with good-natured conversation. They 
wished the landlady a good morning, and bowed 
chivalrously to the good-looking young lady, who 
sat waiting for her breakfast to come in. 

Still another red-cheeked young lady came in 
and was seated beside her companion. She too 
wore glasses and carried a rather commanding 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 151 

chin. Immediately the two girls plunged into 
conversation. Oh! it was such a fine day with- 
out, and this was the day when Agnes should 
come. Indeed, indeed, it had seemed so long 
waiting for her. But then, possibly the reason 
why we appreciate things in this world so much 
is because we sometimes lose sight of them for 
a while. It's the elusive that we long most 
for. Thus speculated one of the pretty young 
philosophers. 

It is scarcely a marvel that over those rich 
roast ducks and juicy mutton chops and steaks 
and cocoa, with morning sunshine filtering into 
the room, we should have disregarded the fact 
that we were strangers to each other; nor was 
it unusual that our thoughts and our words, 
mingling together, should have centered upon 
sunshine, and shamrocks, and daisies, and green 
meadows, and clear running water, and blue 
skies, and Ireland, and everything else in the 
world that is truly delightful to dwell upon. 

The young ladies were teachers in the Na- 
tional School in the little town, and the summer 
vacation was near at hand. They liked the 
work, and oh! the children were so good, but 
nevertheless they were happy that the session 



152 SHAMROCK-LAND 

was drawing to a close. They expected soon 
to visit friends away up in county Monaghan, 
and while there they were going to take a trip 
to Portrush, in county Antrim, where they were 
going bathing in the ocean ; and they hoped they 
would be able to learn how to swim. Swimming 
was quite an accomplishment. But just now 
they wanted Agnes to come, and they could 
hardly wait until the arrival of the train which 
was to bring her. 

Our thoughts left the Emerald Isle and wan- 
dered as far away as South Africa, and Chicago, 
and Manitoba — to all of which distant places 
Connaught people had gone — but we came 
back again to Ireland. One of the young men 
delivered himself of the opinion that Ireland 
would always be good enough for him. He 
made his living, and it was a fairly good living, 
too, traveling about in her thirty-two counties. 
"But," said he, "in order truly and really to see 
Ireland, though it would pain my heart" — 
turning with a gesture of gallantry to the ladies 
— "to say a word against Munster or Con- 
naught, one should visit the city of Belfast up 
in the northeastern part of the island. Oh! it 
is a grate city. Shipbuilding and linen manu- 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 



A Country School. 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 153 

facturing and whisky distilling reach their sub- 
lime heights there! And while you are there, 
sir," — turning to me — "you simply must make 
your home at the Badoque House, my head- 
quarters when in the city. We have a foine 
company of young men there, some who work 
in Belfast and some who travel out of the city. 
Oh! such company as they furnish! And the 
landlady! Well, she is simply deloightful ! Ah! 
what a place!" 

The kindly old lady knitted away, now and 
then making a remark full of good humor. She 
was truly and really glad I was not an English- 
man. Not that the Irish wished to perpetuate 
old hatreds, but the English did not seem to be 
at all anxious to have the Irish like them. For 
instance, not long before she had read an ad- 
vertisement for a servant in the want columns 
of a Liverpool newspaper. A clause of it was, 
"No Irish need apply!" Och! what did I 
think of that ? Wasn't it insulting to the whole 
Irish race ? And a prominent Englishman had 
been approached and his aid solicited in redu- 
cing Irish rents. He was told the Irish had noth- 
ing to eat. "Then," said he, "let them eat that 
rich Irish grass!" What, indeed, was one to 



154 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



think of such an outrage as that ? No, she did 
not feel under any special obligations to love 
the English people. She wanted me to make 
myself at home in her house and remember that 
Americans were always welcome. 

I had spoken of visiting Galway on my trip 
through western Ireland. The young man from 
Belfast wished to know where I expected to 
make my headquarters while there. I gave him 
the name of the hotel, whereupon he grew enthu- 
siastic. 

"Well, sir," said he, "it was the very place 
I was going to recommend. It is the best in 
western Ireland! Foine, sir, simply foine! Ele- 
gant table, decent attention! No better any- 
where!" 

After good-bys had been spoken all around 
and I had hung my feet over the wheel of the 
jaunting-car, the young man from Belfast said, 
"I hope you will go to that place. It's simply 
foine /" 

After two days of rambling I reached Galway 
on the western coast. It was about noon, and 
I went immediately to the hotel which had been 
so highly recommended to me. The clerks were 
pretty young girls who were kind and obliging, 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 155 

so I was given good quarters. There seemed 
to be quite a gathering of men in Galway that 
day. I do not know whether it was a market 
day, a political field day, or the day of a cattle 
fair, but when I went late into the dining-room 
I found many men thereabouts, and apparently 
many had been in ahead of me. It was a free 
and easy place, and dinner was served largely 
table d'hote, though extra dishes could be or- 
dered if one wished them. Vast rounds of beef, 
and Irish ham, and bowls of bitter orange mar- 
malade, and stewed gooseberries, or dishes where 
these eatables had once been, stood upon the 
table. All the napkins had been used, and the 
table-cloth had been badly soiled. The waiters 
had been rushed until they were tired out; and 
I thought, after waiting some time for an order, 
that perhaps the kitchen force also had become 
rebellious. I was convinced that I had come 
upon the hotel on a day when it was not so 
"foine." 

A big bowl of stewed gooseberries, however, 
and a pot of rich cocoa sent me out in excellent 
humor for a ramble through the old town. 

Galway is the one Spanish-Irish town of the 
world. One can hardly conceive of a more re- 



156 SHAMROCK-LAND 

markable combination than one of Spain and 
Ireland — Latin-Moorish, of languid southern 
sunshine, upon the one hand, and Celtic, of 
northern storm and unrest, upon the other. 

The facts of Galway's beginning and early 
history have been lost in the flux of the centuries. 
There is reason to believe, however, that a 
cluster of mud huts with roofs of grass arose 
here on a bay of the Atlantic long before St. 
Patrick's time. Here through the Dark Ages, 
cut off from contact with the activities of Europe, 
the simple Celts lived their lives. They fished 
for salmon in the bay, and hunted wild boar in 
the mountains of Connemara; and at all times 
they were prepared for raids from native chief- 
tains and night attacks from Danish pirate 
ships. 

About a hundred years after Strongbow and 
Henry II made their partial conquest of Ireland, 
or, more exactly, about the year 1250, a number 
of Anglo-Normans found their way across the 
island from the eastern coast and took possession 
of the village of Galway and all the surrounding 
countryside. There were thirteen families or 
households which came, and they were subse- 
quently known as "the tribes of Galway." 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 157 

Note their names: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, 
D'Arcy, Ffont, Ffrench, Joyes, Kirwan, Lynch, 
Martin, Morris, and Skerret. The newcomers 
increased rapidly; and, strange to say, within a 
few generations they had forgotten all allegiance 
to England and France, and had become "more 
Irish than the Irish themselves." 

During the next two or three centuries Galway 
grew rapidly. Walls were placed around the 
city, towers and castles were built, and straight 
streets were laid out. Extensive docks were 
constructed down on the waterside, and a com- 
merce sprang up with the Italian cities, with 
Marseilles, with Lisbon, with the West Indies, 
and with the seaports of Spain. In 1657 Henry 
Cromwell wrote back to England: 

"For situation, voisenage, and commerce it 
hath with Spain, the Strayts, West Indies, and 
other ports, noe towne or port in the three na- 
tions (London excepted) is more considerable." 

The Spaniards came in the thirteenth, four- 
teenth, and fifteenth centuries. There were 
households of rich merchants and retinues of 
servants. Spain was furnishing all Hibernia 
with her wines, and she was taking away in ex- 
change Ireland's cattle, pork, grain and flax. 



158 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Many Spaniards exchanged permanently the soft 
sunshine of Malaga and Seville for the wintry 
skies of Galway. The city after a while became 
in at least some respects more Spanish than 
Irish. 

That still clear summer day when I wandered 
about the streets of the ancient little city, now 
quiet and sleepy, with its vast empty docks and 
dreamy-eyed inhabitants, I saw marks of the 
Spaniard on every hand. Many of the women 
who sat about the doorways or stood quietly on 
the corners wore red skirts such as one sees no- 
where else in Ireland but everywhere in Spain. 
And their eyes were black and piercing, and their 
figures straight, symmetrical and beautiful. 
Strange freaks of architecture — for Ireland — 
in the nature of wide old doorways, fantastic 
ornaments, and ancient Spanish coats-of-arms 
reminded one of sunny Cadiz or blue-misted 
Valencia. 

Though there have been recent attempts to 
make of Galway the leading port for America, 
and several hundreds of thousands of dollars 
have been spent in dredging the bay and building 
wharfs, the project has been as well as aban- 
doned; and a ship for a transatlantic port is a 



PEAT- CUTTERS IN GALWAY 159 

stranger in the beautiful harbor of a city which, 
though fifteen hundred years old, has to-day not 
a thousand inhabitants for each century of its 
existence. 

Turning a corner and passing down a lane 
with long lines of thatched cottages, I knew that 
I was in Ireland still. Irish children played 
upon the sidewalks, donkey-cars passed this way 
and that, and a long string of geese filed by. On 
a corner stood a jaunting-car, and its driver 
sat in a doorway near by smoking contentedly. 

"Is this your car ?" I asked. 

"It is, sir," he replied. "And it would be 
a grate plisure, sir, to make it yours for a 
while." 

I told him I wanted to drive throughout the 
afternoon, and asked if he were open to such an 
extended engagement. 

"Sure, sir, and I am, and to-morrow too if ye 
like. Ye can get right up to your seat from this 
shpot." 

We started off in a smart trot down a narrow 
lane. 

"Och! sir, now and where do ye wish to go ?" 
asked my companion. "The world is wide." 

"Anywhere," I answered, "just anywhere. 



160 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Do you fully understand that word ? I leave 
it to you. Suppose we say anywhere." 

" Iverywhere, sir, with a gintleman loike you 
and on a day loike this! " he said, as a happy little 
twinkle appeared in his eye. 

After we had gone some distance down through 
the tangled lanes and streets and had come in 
sight of the grassy fields, I asked him if he knew 
of some spot away out in the country, far away 
from the influence of the town and out of reach 
of the screaming railroad, where peat-cutters 
could be seen at work getting their winter supply 
of fuel from the bogs. 

"Och! sir, and I do. It is a quiet way, and 
now is the toime, under the midsummer sun, 
whin they do be cutting the turf and piling it up 
to dhry against the coming of the winter." 

We were soon out in the green fields, leaving 
behind us the straggling rows of thatched cot- 
tages in the outskirts of the town. The white 
road passed between densely green fields where 
multitudes of red poppies and golden-hearted 
daisies grew. We came after a while to a frag- 
ment of an old castle which stood directly on 
the roadside. A man was engaged in posting 
upon its old walls a notice which my driver 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GAL WAY 161 

explained to me was no doubt some call to do 
political duty. He said that all western Irish- 
men were deeply interested in politics, and when- 
ever anything in that line had to be done, the 
men of Galway were on hand to do it. What, 
indeed, he speculated, would become of any 
country whose citizens took no interest in poli- 
tics ? 

A mile or two farther along we came to a little 
settlement with its houses irregularly set every- 
where about in the fields. The soil was rocky 
in the extreme, and many of the stones had been 
picked up and put into fences until they ap- 
peared to cover almost half of the surface of the 
ground. The fields were miniature lots, planted 
mostly in potatoes which were flourishing in 
the morning sunshine. 

Just over a fence which enclosed the road an 
old man was upon his knees in a potato patch, 
pulling out with his hands an extraneous growth 
of grass and weeds. When he saw us coming 
down the road he arose and with much diffi- 
culty shuffled over to the fence. His wrinkled 
old face beamed with genuine good humor and 
a real Irish welcome. My driver stopped the 
car, and I got out and talked with him for some 



162 SHAMROCK-LAND 

time. Being genuinely Irish, he spoke English 
very imperfectly, and often my driver had to 
interpret his remarks for me. 

"Och! yis," he was glad to see an "American 
gintleman" so far out in Galway. He had 
never seen one there before, though he had 
heard very much about America. He thought 
some day he would cross the ocean and live in 
that country. To-day he was just weeding his 
potato patch. " P'taties" were doing very well 
because there was both moisture and sunshine. 
He was feeling quite happy these days because 
he had just moved into a new house; not ex- 
actly a new house either, but it felt like new to 
him. Could I see that small house over the 
stone "finces" down the hill there a little way? 
Well, in that house he had lived for fourscore 
and four years. The landlord had finally con- 
sented to let him leave it because the roof of 
thatch had rotted and the walls had begun to 
crumble away. No, he did not object, but he 
would be glad for me to make a picture of it. 

I was not an expert at climbing the Galway 
fences. Just about the time I reached the top- 
most ledge of loose stones something would give 
way beneath me and I would go down on the 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 163 

other side with what appeared to be half a ton 
of stones about me. I was really ashamed of 
myself for my bungling destructiveness. The 
little hut where the old man had spent his days 
was in bad condition. The roof of thatch had 
almost rotted away, and great cracks had come 
in the walls until one could see plainly into the 
interior. There was only one window and that 
was very small. The floor was of very rough 
stones; the chimney was built of mud. And 
this had been the home of a man for eighty-four 
years! 

The old man then took his position upon his 
knees in the midst of the potato vines, com- 
plaining as he went down: "Och! Hivins, and 
how these old bones do hurt! Bedad, and the 
rheumatics do pain one sore!" He looked 
placidly out from under his much-battered, 
greasy old derby hat as I took his picture. Then 
as we drove off he waved his gnarled and twisted 
old hands and bade us farewell. 

Mile after mile we drove through the fields, 
the country becoming more and more thinly 
settled and less rocky as we went; for we were 
not far from the boglands. We were now getting 
into a flat, level country, entirely treeless and 



164 SHAMROCK-LAND 

apparently almost barren so far as any kind of 
crop production was concerned. Only long 
stretches of monotonous bogland could be seen, 
and everything was covered with coarse grass, 
rushes and a kind of bracken. Finally some 
long black mounds came into view, and my 
driver told me we were nearing the place where 
the peat-cutters were at work. Those long black 
mounds were piles of peat or turf, left to dry in 
the sun, and the men and women were at work 
in the trenches hard by. 

I left the car in the road and crossed a level 
piece of bogland, the rank turf springing 
beneath my feet as I walked along, sometimes 
entirely tripping me until I went down upon the 
turf. In the first trench which I approached 
two or three young men were at work. Down in 
a ditch one of them stood, in mud and water 
almost up to his knees. He presented a lugubri- 
ous spectacle indeed, for he wore only two 
garments, and they were not only tattered and 
unsubstantial but were reeking with the black 
mud of the ditch. With a peculiarly shaped 
spade he was cutting brick-shaped blocks of 
quivering muck from the bog and throwing it 
dexterously upon the bank where another work- 




u. 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 165 

man dressed with a torn shirt and corduroy 
trousers was carrying it off and placing it in 
piles to dry. Another was busy turning over 
some half-dried bricks in much larger piles 
near at hand. 

I immediately began to talk to the two men. 
They were very talkative, but they did not want 
me to use my kodak upon them. Oh, no, it 
would never do. I tried to argue with them, 
but they would not consent. I asked them why 
they objected to allowing me to have an interest- 
ing picture after I had come across the Atlantic 
just to see the strange things of Ireland. 

"Och! and is it ye are an American ?" one of 
them asked. " Faith, and I should have known 
it. I thought ye had come from Galway, and 
I was afraid ye would take the picture of us 
back and show it in the town. The divil a wheel 
would we be able to turn with the girruls there 
again. Whin we go to Galway to the fairs we 
do go drissed up, and the ladies niver know we 
do driss like this out here in the bogs." 

"Sur," said the other, "we do not be objicting 
to the picther ye'r afther, only we think ye might 
be willing, if we sthand shtill from worruk long 
enough, to give us the price of a dhrink. The 



166 SHAMROCK-LAND 

public-'ouse is near by — jist over yon hill — 
and we do love a dhrink of porther, sur, — 
nothing shtronger — just as we get out of this 
mud." 

When I left them I handed them sixpence 
apiece. Then I crossed the field to a trench 
where a very scantily dressed young man of per- 
haps five and twenty years was cutting out the 
turf and throwing it out to be handled by a 
young woman who stood upon the bank. She 
was perhaps no more than twenty years of age, 
but she was a superb specimen of womanhood. 
In figure she was exquisite, strong, active and 
shapely. She was dressed heavily in native 
wool. Even her skirt and bodice were of wool, 
as well as the shawl over her head and her thick 
stockings. She wore enormous shoes for pro- 
tection against the dampness of the bogs. 

I addressed many remarks to the young man 
in the ditch before I could get any reply from 
him. He appeared to be cordial enough and 
good-natured, but he would not talk. It mat- 
tered not what I said, he simply looked at me 
at every remark and grinned. At length the 
young woman saw that I did not understand 
the situation. 




PQ 



u ■ 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 167 

"Oh! sur," she said, "good gintleman, ye 
must excuse him. He is that Irish he do not 
talk English at all at all. He do talk Irish well, 
and if ye know that language he will be glad 
to talk with ye." 

I begged to be excused from talking Irish, 
but I talked with the young woman in English. 
They were husband and wife, and they lived 
in a little thatched house about a mile from these 
bogs. They cut turf here every day throughout 
the summer when the weather permitted. They 
sometimes made as much as a shilling apiece, 
and when they worked very hard they had made 
four shillings and sixpence between them. But 
this was not often. It was getting rather late 
for cutting turf, but some would cut it until fall. 
Turf from these bogs was sold in Galway and 
all through the countryside. 

The vast level stretches of the bog extended 
as far as eye could see in every direction. Noth- 
ing but black mounds and coarse grass, with 
now and then a stunted shrub or a grass-covered 
hillock could be seen. In all parts of this vast 
stretch of waste land, where millions of square 
yards of peat lay open for the gathering, men, 
women, and children were at work cutting out 



168 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the brick-shaped masses and carrying them off 
to be dried. Many could be seen moving the 
piles and re-stacking the blackish brown blocks 
which, after drying, resembled decaying wood 
known as punk, and was elastic and porous and 
filled with roots and grass. 

Peat, or turf, is found in almost all parts of 
Ireland and Scotland, but in the interior of Ire- 
land, where the level boglands occur, the supply 
is most plentiful. Around the Irish coast on 
every side hills and mountains rise to give a 
peculiar beauty to the landscapes, but almost 
everywhere in the interior of the island the 
country is level. The bogs are not primitive 
or original masses of earth, but are merely 
accumulations of vegetable matter which has 
undergone a peculiar change under a degree 
of temperature not sufficiently great to decom- 
pose the plants and grasses which have grown 
upon the surface. In some of the bogs in Ire- 
land there may be found remains of immense 
forests, a great variety of trees, the wood in 
some cases still so sound as to be of value to the 
builder. 

As there is little coal in Ireland, peat-cutting 
for fuel is a great occupation for the peasantry. 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 169 

The commonest method for getting out this peat, 
or turf, requires six operations. The first opera- 
tion usually requires four men and two turf- 
barrows. The strongest man uses the slane, or 
spade, in cutting out the brick-shaped blocks, 
another places the turfs upon the barrows, and 
a third rolls them off and empties them. The 
fourth man shapes up the banks for the slane 
man. Such a gang of workmen is expected in 
a day to cut an amount of turf known as a 
"dark"; and it is estimated that from two 
to four darks of turf will last one cottage 
through the winter. Men thus engaged in 
cutting turf formerly got a shilling a day. The 
wages in nearly every part of Ireland are higher 
now. 

The second operation is the spreading of the 
turf from the barrow heaps. This is usually 
done by women and children. The turf re- 
mains spread thus for about a week. Footing 
comes next. The turfs are collected in parcels 
of six each, and are set upon end where they are 
allowed to remain about ten days. The turf is 
then rickled. A rickle contains about ten foot- 
ings or sixty turfs. After fourteen days in the 
rickle the turfs are placed in clamps or stacks 



170 SHAMROCK-LAND 

twelve feet long, six feet high and four feet 
wide. The last operation of all is drawing home 
and stacking near the cottage where it is to be 
consumed. Donkey-cars are almost invariably 
used for this purpose. 

In almost every interior Irish village one may 
see little donkey-carts piled up high with blocks 
of this spongy, porous, fibrous combustible, 
which the drivers are anxious to sell at two 
shillings the load or twelve sods a penny. Many 
a peasant, with leased right from his landlord 
to gather turf from neighboring bogs, makes his 
simple living year in and year out drying and 
selling turf which is used almost everywhere in 
the country for fuel. 

After wandering about among the trenches 
and footings, and rickles and clamps, I found 
my driver on the roadside lazily and heartlessly 
cutting off the heads of inoffensive daisies with 
the cracker of his whip. We drove in leisurely 
manner back to Galway. For a part of the dis- 
tance the road was the same as the one by which 
we came, then we entered another road and went 
into an unfrequented country. Late in the after- 
noon we passed through a little village in a 
secluded spot at the foot of a long hill. It was 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 171 

a typical western Irish village in all respects, 
the houses being small, thatch-covered and old. 
We drove by a little yard walled in with loosely 
piled stones, and I made a picture of the front 
of the house just as three half-grown white 
shoats emerged from the open doorway of the 
one room under the roof. Some chickens and 
ducks which also had free access to the room 
were near at hand, and the goat was near by. 
The woman of the house came out about this 
time and began to express her opinion of the 
driver for bringing a "shtrange gintleman" to 
her house. "Sure, and ye monkey-lipped spal- 
peen," said she, shaking her fist at him, "they'll 
be raising my rint or turning me out o' house and 
home all on account o' your incidence!" 

My driver, seeing the old piece of skillet in 
her hand, did not waste any words with her; 
but cracking his whip loudly, and ducking his 
head as though dodging something, he drove off 
rapidly, leaving the woman in the doorway 
uttering torrents of heartily-felt vituperation. 
At another house in this settlement we saw 
chickens, geese, ducks, pigs, goats and even 
donkeys in the dooryards with license to enter 
the house at pleasure. And the children were 



172 SHAMROCK-LAND 

upon terms of equality with the other inhabi- 
tants of the premises. 

It was just such a village, I suppose, that an 
American traveler not long ago visited for the 
purpose of studying the people of western Ire- 
land. He was particularly impressed with the 
exceeding friendliness of the pigs which came up 
and with the utmost good nature began to root 
up his trousers leg by way of investigation. And 
he found that the custom was to allow the cow, 
the donkey and the goat to live under the same 
roof with the renters of the cottage, though in a 
different room; and sometimes piles of manure 
on the outside appeared to have been thrown 
out of the parlor window. This gentleman's 
description, as I proved beyond the shadow of 
a doubt, was not an exaggeration. 

It was after sunset when we drew near the 
old city of Galway. We began to meet upon 
the road donkey-cars of all sizes and types, each 
one loaded to its limit with all ages of humanity. 
There must have been some gathering or cele- 
bration in Galway that day which I knew noth- 
ing of. It was a wonder to me then and has 
been ever since how one small animal could 
draw or one small cart contain such aggrega- 



y « *jy -^ 




w 



PEAT-CUTTERS IN GALWAY 173 

tions of individuals as we saw riding home that 
June day from Galway. Cart after cart passed 
us in the road. My driver and I vied with each 
other in giving them the glad word; but in this 
matter none can equal a citizen of Galway. 
They outdid us in cordiality, and their rollicking 
good humor was stimulating in the extreme. 
These people were apparently Celts of the purest 
stock, — black hair, blue eyes, long upper lips, 
and broad faces, I had up to that hour thought 
that the caricatures of the comic weeklies were 
gross and libellous exaggerations. I found that 
it would be hard to exaggerate the picturesque- 
ness of a Galway peasant. 

On the roadside we met a shapely young girl, 
absolutely barefooted and clothed apparently in 
but one single garment, and that not a very secure 
one. In looking upon her one would imagine she 
was the original Jenny Sutton of whom Morris 
said: 

" One single pin at night let loose 
The robes which veiled her beauty." 

A red glow came into the sky, and a sharp 
wind blew up from the southwest. The folds of 
a dark cloud appeared, and now and then we 
felt in our faces fresh, cold drops of rain. Long 



i 7 4 SHAMROCK-LAND 

rows of thatched houses could be seen through 
the dusk, and children played, and geese cackled, 
and donkeys brayed; and a mist came up from 
the sea and settled down over all the happy 
scene. 



CHAPTER VII 

GALWAY'S TRAGEDY — THE FIRST LYNCHING 

Behind us were the gray rocks of Jarcon- 
naught and the luscious greenness of the Moy- 
cullen meadows. Eastwardly and on our left, 
stretching away into the north, Lough Corrib 
lay like a sheet of steely glass, its misty shore 
line fretted with moldering castle wall and 
ruined abbeys. Below us lay the old town of 
Galway awaiting in the damp twilight the fall 
of night. The wet fogs drifted in from the 
ocean and obscured the distant views of bay 
and inlet and river and field. Descending the 
long even slope, we entered the Claddagh where 
children played in the streets, fisher-folk passed 
homeward with their nets, and belated mar- 
ket-cars slowly turned towards the green fields. 
Then, crossing the long bridge, we went into 
the town. 

I had seen much, that long summer day, of 
mountain and meadow, cottage and crumbling 
castle, but a restlessness drove me on. I bade 

'75 



176 SHAMROCK-LAND 

my driver good-by and went into the inn for an 
evening meal; then I went out again into the 
streets and strolled aimlessly about, observing 
the houses and wondering at the strange faces 
that passed me in the gathering darkness. 
There were Moorish gargoyles and Spanish 
facements upon the corners and at the entrances 
to the alleys. Now and then a tall, lithe figure 
brushed past me, and it was plain from his olive 
face and the odor of his cigarette that he had 
other than Celtic blood in his veins. Couples 
of women, with strange gypsy-like cheeks and 
ringed ears, passed me with downcast faces and 
cautious foosteps. They were reminders of 
Spanish days. 

The shops had closed one by one until now 
the streets had taken on an appearance of deser- 
tion. At the end of a narrow alley down which 
I had gone in a search of an exit to another 
street which I wished to explore, I paused for 
a moment to look into a little barred window 
where some great old volumes bound in heavy 
sheep and a number of early engravings were 
displayed. Almost instinctively I turned the 
old-fashioned door-knob and went into the 
quaint little shop. Leaning over a somber 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 177 

tome on a desk was a little old man with a 
long white beard. Two tallow candles sufficed 
to give him light. 

"Ah! an American ?" he asked, then went on 
as though the question needed no answer. 
"How different are your people from us of the 
older world. How quick you are, how conquer- 
ing, and what a hopeful look you bear in 
your faces!" Then his black eyes scrutinized 
me closely, and a kindly smile played over his 
lips. 

"I was reading," he said, "when you came 
in. It is Le Sage. The volume before me is 
'Gil Bias.' I sometimes wonder how a French- 
man could understand Spaniards so well. 
Shrouded in Galway's mists, I lose myself 
often of evenings wandering with this loitering 
vagabond over the purple vineclad hills of Spain. 
This edition with its heavy covers and quaint 
old cuts was made in Paris nearly two hundred 
years ago." 

The old man's kindly manner and intelli- 
gent conversation had begun to charm me. I 
needed not much urging to remain and talk 
with him for a while. He was lonesome, too, 
he said, and an American was a rarity with 



178 SHAMROCK-LAND 

him. It was a luxury to talk with one who 
had a heart, as he expressed it. Possibly he 
had reference to one who manifested interest 
in him and in those things which interested him. 
To that extent I must confess I certainly had 
a heart. 

"I am of that strange mixture," he went on 
to tell me, "Spanish and Irish. I was born 
in this house, in a room above us. My father 
was indulgent with me, and when yet a boy I 
was sent to Madrid to learn my rudiments. 
Thence I went to Paris; and afterwards I 
studied philosophy in Edinburgh. A year at 
Trinity in Dublin completed my education, and 
I came back home. My father had this shop 
before me. I have been here since he died. 
No; I am the only one of my family in all the 
world save some distant relatives in Vallado- 
lid and Oviedo in Spain. 

" But this little shop and these books — God 
bless us, how I love them! — they are, indeed, 
my life!" 

And then he told me about Galway, its early 
history, its traditions. The city, he said, had 
been founded away back in the dark ages, long 
before the Anglo-Saxon came to Britain. The 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 179 

island was densely wooded then, and there 
were savage tribes and bands of wolves in the 
mountains. And after the coming of Patrick, 
and still later of the Anglo-Normans, the Span- 
iards came, not gallantly with arms to fight, 
but in ships, to trade. Even the gargoyles 
that hung over the narrow streets to-day, though 
they represented dragons, had Moorish cheeks; 
and their eyes, too human, were the eyes that 
one sees to-day upon the streets of Burgos and 
Salamanca, or in the villages outside of quiet 
Avila in Spain. 

The old man paused and took his old-fash- 
ioned glasses from his eyes and polished them 
with his handkerchief, staring the while into a 
dark corner of the shop. 

"The history of the Spaniards in Ireland 
— what romance, what tragedy!" And the 
old gentleman paused again and sighed. 

"You wish to hear a story. I know you do," 
he said. "Then come, walk with me upon the 
streets for a while, and let us gather its spirit 
from the darkness which is falling about us." 

He locked the little door and placed the great 
iron key in a leathern bag which he carried in 
his hand. Then we walked up the narrow 



180 SHAMROCK-LAND 

alley, turned into the street and walked some 
distance, and then turned into another street 
where we met a cool breeze which swept in 
from the sea. We walked a while in silence, 
hearing nothing save the far-off swish of waves 
against the shore. 

"I wish to tell you a story," said the old man, 
"a story that will thrill your heart. 

"They say that Ireland has originated 
nothing. It is not true. God pity us that the 
green old island fathered the one institution 
which is a stigma upon the fair civilization of 
your country to-day. 

"See before us through the mist that square 
black building of stone with armorial bearings 
above the great doorways, and strangely-carved 
ornaments about the windows ? We call it 
'Lynch's Castle.' That was for three hundred 
years the home of the most distinguished fam- 
ily of Anglo-Normans that came to western 
Ireland. Those exquisite gargoyles and the 
crest of the lynx at the entrance show that those 
who first built the castle were rich, not only in 
gold, but in refinement and descent as well. 

"It came about that a scion of this family, 
one James Lynch Fitz-Stephen, was made 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 181 

warden of Galway the next year after the Geno- 
ese with his caravels, the Pinta, the Nina, and 
the Santa Maria, set sail from Palos in search 
of land across the western seas. The Warden 
was a man of action ; nor was he ashamed to be 
known as a nobleman in trade. He numbered 
among his personal friends Santangel, Spain's 
royal treasurer, and the Marchioness de Moya, 
the noble woman who plead on her knees be- 
fore Isabella for funds to send Columbus on 
his voyage. Tradition has it that this warden 
sent to Spain a bag of gold to be divided equally 
between the cause of Columbus and that of 
driving Boabdil the Moor from Granada. If 
true, God blessed both gifts to the utmost. 
Fitz-Stephen's ships visited all the seaports of 
Spain. In those far-off cities he was known 
as though he were king of Ireland; and wherever 
his galleons sailed his name stood for all that 
was best in life — power, honesty, faithfulness 
to duty, justice to the weakest of humanity. 

"One day in summer, when the ocean was 
quiet, and a soft mist hung over Black Head 
and Inishmore, a gaily-bedecked galleon drifted 
slowly up the bay and landed near where now 
is the pier whence comes the sound of the swish 



182 SHAMROCK-LAND 

of waves in this wind to-night. From it stepped 
forth a young man in scarlet attire, with attend- 
ants, and rich goods, and vast bales of products 
from Spain. To this black castle, then bril- 
liant with life, he bore costly presents, and a 
letter, with seal of gold, addressed to the 
Warden of Galway. It was an illuminated 
parchment, after the manner of earlier days: 

"'My son goes for a season to dwell with 
you in your northern home, as I promised you 
when you were in Spain that he would do when 
he came of age. His presence will prove the 
esteem in which Spain holds Ireland. At your 
good pleasure you may send your son to us in 
Spain that he may live in the home of my fam- 
ily and mingle with the people of rank in Val- 
encia.' 

"The letter was signed by Miguel Gomez, a 
merchant-lord of one of the richest cities of 
Spain. 

"Young Rodrigue soon became a favorite in 
Galway. In body he was beautiful — active 
and strong, so that his manhood showed itself in 
the Irish games that call forth the best that is 
in the physical man. His temperament was 
gentle, and his voice had all that softness which 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 183 

typifies the Spaniard at his best. His hands 
were fashioned to the lute, and Galway's eve- 
nings were enlivened with his soft music and 
his tender old Spanish songs. 

"Walter Lynch, only son of the Warden, was 
even then making preparations to sail for Val- 
encia in one of his father's ships, to remain many 
months as a hostage in esteem for his people 
on the western coast of Ireland. While he 
yet remained in Ireland he became the insep- 
arable companion of the young Spaniard. They 
rode together over the Irish hills and vied with 
each other in swimming in the bay. Together 
they visited the gentry of Connaught, hunted 
in the mountains, and studied the works of the 
old masters. 

"Galway, second not even to Limerick, has 
ever been known for the beauty of her daughters. 
At the time of my story there was none in all 
the West who could compare with Agnes, the 
only daughter of John Flood, a wealthy gentle- 
man. Tradition ascribes to her not the gray- 
blue eye and the blue-black hair of Ireland, 
nor yet the jet-black eyes and the olive com- 
plexion of Spain, but rather hair and eyes that 
matched, and they a golden brown that glinted 



184 SHAMROCK-LAND 

in the sun. In form, she was supple and strong; 
in manner teasing and laughter-loving, and full 
of the passion of life, all inherited from her 
Norman ancestors, a race of conquerors. From 
infancy this girl had been as much at home in 
this black castle of the Lynches as she was in 
her father's great stone mansion across yon 
street. When she grew into maidenhood suitors 
came from far and near to win her smiles. 
Hardly a castle in western Ireland but sent a 
son here at one time or another to sue for her 
favors, nor a family that had not some scion 
which they would not gladly have grafted upon 
such a stock. 

" But it was Walter Lynch, son of the War- 
den, who had won her heart when as children 
they played together about these great door- 
ways; others came but in vain. One passion 
filled her breast, one hope ruled her heart. In- 
deed, it was currently believed that the son of 
the king himself might not have been able to 
displace this sovereign of her heart. 

'•On the night before the day which had been 
appointed for young Walter to sail for Valencia 
the Warden gave a feast in the castle before 
us. From yon small window in the turret to 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 185 

the very dungeons underneath bright lights 
shone and gay music sounded. Such a supper 
had not been known in Galway before. All 
the rich and great were there. The gallant 
young Spaniard was that night clothed in purple, 
and with his lute he pleased all the vast com- 
pany. It was observed that frequently he sat 
at Agnes' feet and played and sang old songs 
of Spain that seemed to please her much, and 
yet they brought forth tears from her eyes. It 
was scarcely a wonder that Walter should have 
gone apart with bitterness in his soul. Through 
the long months which were to follow, and he 
far away in Valencia, could this girl remain 
true to him, when beauty and gallantry and talent 
dwelt close by her side and at will could draw 
tears from her eyes ? But the manhood in 
him prevailed. He stifled the wild pangs of 
jealousy and rage as unworthy of an Irish 
gentleman; and the next day he bade his sweet- 
heart a long good-by, and sailed on a ship for 
Spain. 

"Long months passed, and Rodrigue Gomez 
still remained in Galway. Walter Lynch Fitz- 
Stephen, faithful to the manner of those days, 
was a friendly hostage in the rich city of Val- 



1 86 SHAMROCK-LAND 

encia, in Spain. His companions there were 
folk of rank and wealth; and more than once 
he had gone to the Escorial as an invited guest. 
Everywhere he met with that hospitality for 
which Spain is famous. The handsomest and 
wealthiest of Valencia's daughters vied with 
each other in their attempts to please this brawny 
northerner who sought the bull-ring, the fields 
of wild riding, and all the manly sports rather 
than the company of women and their kind. 

"Once a week one of his father's ships came 
into the port, bearing a cargo of barley, or wheat, 
or the rich root-crops of Ireland. Each rough 
commander brought carefully in his bosom a 
missive which servants of the palace of the 
elder Gomez bore swiftly to the young Irish- 
man; and upon such occasions, whether in 
the bull-ring or in a hall oF feasting, he quickly 
retired to his apartments in the palace and 
remained long hours alone. 

"One week no letter came. Truly did the 
great dramatist tell how trifles light as air can 
confirm the bitterness of the heart of him who 
is jealously inclined. Young Fitz-Stephen shut 
himself in and saw no one until the next letter 
came. Agnes wrote that when the ship which 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 187 

ought to have borne him a letter sailed from 
Galway she had been away from the city sail- 
ing with a party of friends on Lough Corrib, 
and had spent some days at Castles Ballycurrin 
and Annahkeen. Her letter was full of descrip- 
tions of the tender beauty of Inishmicatreer, 
and Inchiquin, and Inchacommaun, and of the 
yew-shaded Abbey of Ross and gray castle 
Moyne. Her descriptions of water and wood 
touched his spirit with melancholy and home- 
sickness. And there was dread in his heart 
and bitterness. Pictures of the brown-haired 
girl would arise in his mind, and always by her 
side was a Spaniard in purple with soft voice 
and a lute in his hand. 

"Again no letter came. Two weeks passed 
this time, and three. He sought the docks at 
night and talked long with one of his father's 
sea-captains. The rough man said he had 
waited at the Claddagh for hours, but no letter 
had been sent to him. We had heard it reported 
in the city that a party of the young gentry of 
Galway, including the Spaniard and Agnes 
Flood, had gone on a trip half across Ireland 
to Knockdrin Castle near Mullingar. Thence 
they would go to Castle Dromineer and Kill- 



1 88 SHAMROCK-LAND 

aloe on Lough Derg, and thence again to 
Limerick and home by way of Lisdoonvarna, 
Kinvarra, and Oranmore. Their trip, now 
half over, would extend through two months' 
time. 

Days passed, and still no letter from Agnes. 
One morning there was consternation in the 
palace of Miguel Gomez, and all Valencia was 
filled with excitement. The strong young Irish- 
man could nowhere be found. Search was 
made throughout the city and in all the neigh- 
boring cities of southern Spain. Some thought 
young Walter had been murdered, and others 
said he had been drowned at sea while sailing 
alone as he sometimes was accustomed to do. 
But there were wiser ones who said nothing at 
all, but only smiled and shook their heads. It 
was known that on the night when the young 
man disappeared a galleon loaded with wines 
had left the port for Galway in Ireland. 

"Two weeks later, on a stormy night follow- 
ing a season of dreadful tempests, a ship, 
lashed with the waves, came into yon harbor 
which appears so dimly through the mist. The 
vessel anchored in the angry tide. Over its 
side came a man in Spanish attire, and in a 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 189 

frail boat he fought his way to the shore. At 
midnight, alone, he passed up this street, half- 
running as he went along. He stopped be- 
neath that window there — see how it hangs 
out from that quaint old castle of stone! That 
was the home of Agnes. The darkness hides 
from us the carved entablatures and the fretted 
escarpments. Nor can we discern the crest 
of the dove above the entrance. 

"Out of that great old doorway at midnight 
came Rodrigue Gomez, clothed in scarlet, a 
lute in his hand. Under that window, Agnes 
standing above him, with clusters of golden- 
brown hair about her face, he stopped and sang 
a good-night song of love. Then a wave of 
the hand, a kiss thrown, and all became quiet 
again. 

"Then Walter Lynch came out of the shadows. 
A dagger glittered in his hand, and his face was 
fearful to see. The young Spaniard turned and 
fled as from an apparition. Down this very 
street they went. Come, follow me, friend, 
down where they went, to the waterside." 

The story of the strange old man fascinated 
me and thrilled me with horror. His intensity 
of feeling and his passion as he abandoned him- 



190 SHAMROCK-LAND 

self to his story made the scene live before my 
eyes. A veritable Ancient Mariner, he held 
me spellbound with the glitter of his eye. Yet 
there was tenderness upon his face. I walked 
with him down to the bay. 

"Here on this very spot where we stand, " 
continued he, "Walter Lynch plunged his dag- 
ger into the heart of Rodrigue Gomez. He 
cast the body into the tide. When the morning 
sun stole through the mist they found it here, 
all dressed in scarlet, yet stained with a deeper 
crimson about the heart. 

"The murderer fled to the mountains of 
Jarconnaught, and sought safety in an ancient 
castle there. All Galway learned the secret 
of the crime, and pity filled every heart. The 
Warden, loving the boy better than his own 
life, publicly acknowledged the bitter tragedy. 

"Parental love is strong — oh! stronger than 
death — but honor and justice, properly rooted, 
are stronger still. The love of a father may 
cause bitter tears to fall, and bosoms to heave, 
and faces to twitch and blanch, but honor im- 
planted in the soul steels one to have his heart 
plucked from his bosom and his body burned 
with fire! 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 191 

"James Lynch Fitz-Stephen, the sworn War- 
den of Galway, the upholder of all law, had 
never swerved from justice. A man of honor, 
death was sweet to him, when compared with the 
betrayal of a trust the people had placed in him. 

"The next day, at the head of strong men, 
with steel and steeds, he set out for the moun- 
tains of Jarconnaught. Oh! how the tears of 
Galway's women fell! The young man's mother, 
with Agnes by her side, followed the stern 
father out of the city, begging for mercy for 
her son. Oh! was it not love which had brought 
about this tragedy ? And could not one be 
forgiven anything for love ? But the silent 
man turned not his head to left or right, but 
rode bitterly on. His honor and the honor of 
his country transcended every private thought; 
and ten thousand deaths with torture could not 
have turned him from his course. 

"But they had not to travel far. Where 
the road passes Ballycuirke Lough, with waters 
always gray, they met young Walter riding a 
wild Irish steed. He flung himself from his 
saddle and knelt at his father's feet. The War- 
den tied him with his own hands and bore him 
back to Galway. 



192 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



"All the city had come out to weep and to 
pray for the boy's release. Young Agnes, won- 
drous in beauty, with her rich-brown hair fall- 
ing about her face, grasped the neck of the steed 
which bore the Warden. Sobs and wails went 
up from the women all along the way, and little 
children wept from sympathy. But the War- 
den heard not these sounds. He listened to 
but one voice, the voice of duty — and death! 

"Yon black castle, with walls tumbling now, 
was his prison-house. It was but a few days 
that they kept him there. His father spent the 
whole time in the dungeon with him. What 
passed between them none but God and the 
angels know. 

"The day of the trial came. Noblemen from 
far away Ulster, and citizens from rocky Don- 
egal and Drogheda and ancient Cork; women 
from Limerick, richly clothed; stern soldiers 
from the castles at Athlone and Blarney and 
Armagh; peasants from Kerry and Mayo; men 
of law from Dublin — all came to beg for the 
life of the boy. But the father with calm brow 
and white lips sat still and sentenced his only 
son to death at the rising of the morrow's sun. 

"There was much strange whispering in the 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 193 

great crowd that had gathered; and one might 
have discerned the beginning of strange hap- 
penings. That night the city was filled with 
men from all western Ireland, and there was 
upon their faces a bitterness which might not 
be expressed. The young man went back to 
his dungeon unmolested and unafraid. All 
awaited with breathless anxiety the rising of 
the morrow's sun. 

"That night the Warden called the priest into 
the cell and the three remained there in dark- 
ness until they saw the light; but it was the 
peaceful light from the face of God which shone 
into that cell. 

"When the hour of execution was come the 
father called the stern officers of the law into 
the cell. They shuddered, and by no means 
could be prevailed upon to place the rope about 
the young man's throat. Neither threats nor 
appeals to duty prevailed. The Warden per- 
formed this office with his own hands. They 
then led the young man up the chill steps from 
the dungeon and flung wide the great doors 
which opened upon the place of execution. 

"A great crowd of blanched faces and high- 
lifted arms met them. Teeth were clenched in 



194 SHAMROCK-LAND 

fury, and loud bitter cries were uttered. With 
drawn swords and daggers they rushed into the 
castle with shouts: 'Release the brave young 
Irishman! Death to those who would harm 
him!' They pierced through the foremost of 
the guards and ground them beneath their feet. 
The soldiers held their ground valiantly, fight- 
ing back the mob from the doorway, killing 
many of them with their swords. But the crazed 
multitude without fought their way into the 
castle over the bodies of their fallen com- 
rades. 

"James Fitz-Stephen, with rope about the 
neck of his son, led the young man quickly up 
the great stone stairway just as the mob cut 
down the last of the prison guard and stamped 
them under their feet. Reaching the top of 
the castle, closely pursued by shouting men, he 
quickly made fast the rope to an iron bar, then 
lifted the young man bodily and flung him 
from the window, leaving his body dangling 
above the heads of the angry mob below. The 
crowd became wild with fury, and men swarmed 
up the stairway intent upon cutting the rope 
before young Walter should die; but the War- 
den, an infuriated giant, stood at the head of 



GAL WAY'S TRAGEDY 195 

the stairway, and with the strength of a demon, 
his eyes the while flashing fire, he decapitated 
men and thrust through hearts until a river of 
blood flowed down the steps of stone. And 
then the steps became blocked with the bodies 
of the dead and dying so that further attempts 
to reach the Warden became useless. All the 
while of this carnage the body of Walter Lynch 
swung to and fro outside the castle walls writh- 
ing in death. At length the end came and the 
twitchings ceased. 

"Filled with horror unspeakable, the great 
crowd dissolved like mist before the sun. They 
slunk away like cowed animals, lost in pity and 
despair. 

"Then the Warden drew in the body of his 
son, threw aside the carrions upon the stair- 
way, and buried the corpse with his own hands. 

"The next day the old Warden — for he had 
become old and shrivelled in a night — left the 
city which he had ruled so well, and with his 
wife, now white and palsied and bereft of reason, 
went up into Connemara where a few days 
later both of them died on the stone floor of a 
peasant's hut. 

"Yon church before us is St. Nicholas. 



196 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Within it there is a great square tomb, exqui- 
sitely carved in marble. Beneath it lie the 
bones of the Warden and his wife. 

"Out there under the sod, hidden from us by 
the shadows of night, are two other graves, side 
by side. In one is Agnes Flood, in the other 
Walter Lynch Fitz-Stephen. 

"Even through this mist and darkness you 
may see that fragment of a wall, and upon it a 
death's head chiselled in stone. On this stone 
is a strange and weird inscription, carved there 
many generations ago: 

'REMEMBER DEATHE 
VANITI OF VANITI 8 ALL IS BUT 
VANITI' 

"From that window just above the grin- 
ning death's head Walter Lynch was flung by 
his father; and here upon the very spot where 
we stand tradition tells us Agnes, looking upon 
the quivering body above her, swooned away 
in death." 

The old man became silent and gazed up 
at the gray walls. 

"Ah! God," he said, "What a tragedy!" 

Then he was silent again. His story had 





From that Window Walter Lynch was flung. 
" Vaniti oi Vanities — Aile is I'amti." 



GALWAY'S TRAGEDY 197 

been told. We could hear the waves moaning 
in the bay; and the wind came up and drove 
the mist into our faces. We turned and 
walked away from the place along the quiet 
street. 



CHAPTER VIII 

IN QUEST OF GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 

We were in the very heart of Ireland. Be- 
hind us, toward the south, was the old garri- 
son town of Athlone, lying quietly sleeping on 
the banks of the Shannon; on our right and 
left, steaming away in the hot June sunshine, 
lay fields of dank green grass; in front of us 
the white road stretched like a waving ribbon 
as far as eye could see in the distance. 

"Och!" said my driver, who sat over the 
right wheel to balance me on the left. "Och! 
jist think of it — the beauty that dwelt in that 
heart and sowl!" He did not explain, but went 
introspectively on: 

" ' Swate Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, 

Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain, 

Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 

And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed !' 

"The picther of the ould home niver lift him 

— the swate ould place where he wished to 

come and die! Glory be his bed!" 

198 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 199 

We could have been talking about none other 
than Oliver Goldsmith. We were in his coun- 
try, near the spot of his birth. My companion 
was an Irishman on his native sod, and he was 
taking me in his own jaunting-car to visit Lis- 
soy, now known as Auburn, "Goldsmith's 
Deserted Village. " 

Just before we left the little old-fashioned 
stone inn at Athlone, where eel steaks can be 
had the year round, the proprietor had taken 
me aside and told me that my driver was a man 
of "poethry and lore"; and from the remarks 
which he had let fall since we crossed the bridge 
into the blooming meadows of the country, I 
had reason to believe that my host had, in a 
measure at least, spoken nothing more than the 
truth. But when I looked across the fields 
that stretched about us, I felt something like 
pity for any one who could fail to be full of 
"poethry" upon such a day and in such a 
country as this. 

Lough Ree came into view over a stone wall 
enclosing a meadow on our left, and to-day it 
was not an Irish lake at all — no gloomy gray- 
ness hung about it — but it flashed a broad 
sheet of gladsome, golden sunshine into the 



2 oo SHAMROCK-LAND 

faces of the dwellers in all that peaceful country- 
side; and they, like good Irish people, stood 
looking — just looking with solemn faces across 
the checkered fields. 

Has any one ever been able to explain why it 
is that the Irish people at home like so well to 
stand, even in days of mist and gloom, and 
gaze up the rocky lanes or across the wind-swept 
fields ? Has any one ever tried to tell us why 
the Irishman does not love the interior of his 
home, but even when the years have bent his 
back and whitened his hair, does his dreaming 
and thinking out under the open sky? And 
has any one ever thought out why it is that in 
these reveries there is upon the face of the 
dreamer somewhat of a vague sorrow and an 
indefinable melancholy ? Is it that the Irishman 
revels in gloom, and that the law of sadness is 
in his heart ? Or is it that indefinable thing 
which they call "the spirit of the Celt" which 
has followed him down the ages and will not let 
him be ? Who knows ? Whatever it be, on that 
sweet day of the solstice, when the June sunshine 
clung to the blooming hayfields, there were those 
in sight of a lake all aflame with dimpling joy 
who stood and gazed sadly off into the distance. 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 201 

Some of them were young and strong, but 
most of the seers of visions had hearkened to 
some vague call from beyond the sunset line, 
and those who had remained at home were but 
simple dreamers of dreams. The old had been 
left behind, still in exile — destined never to 
know the how or why — never to see beyond 
the mountains that shut them in from the rest- 
less sea — remained to open and shut gates, to 
stand and gaze up bare, moldy alleys, to look 
mournfully upon daisy-flecked hillsides or across 
poppy-pied meadows. "Some day — yis, some 
Missed day!" 

The old walled-in roadways showed signs of 
life in frequent low-backed cars, or an occasional 
barefooted old woman with her head muffled 
up in a shawl, trudging along with a basket or 
a bag. Sometimes we saw a good-natured 
Irishman spading away in his potato patch, or 
a ragged boy leading a turf-loaded donkey 
cart. Or, perchance, we got a fleeting glimpse 
of a bare-legged peasant girl standing out on a 
rocky hillside, her Celtic soul dancing out from 
the depths of her gray-blue eyes to meet the 
brightness of this day in June. 

Far down on our right some long black mounds 



202 SHAMROCK-LAND 

came into view. The peat-cutters had been at 
work gathering their winter supply of fuel. My 
driver could not understand what might inter- 
est me in that "damp, dirthy place," but he 
was obliging and veered his car in that direc- 
tion. An old man and an old woman, husband 
and wife, were re-stacking brick-shaped blocks 
of turf that had nearly dried. Their greeting 
was cordial even for Ireland. Ah! would I 
tell them of "Amuriky" ? They would know 
about the "grate cities, the foine farrums, and 
the rich folk." And would I be pleased to tell 
them about the pigs; and did they burn turf or 
coal over there ? And did I know Timmy 
O'Mulligan ? It was strange that I had never 
even heard of him. He now owned three gro- 
cery stores in Philadelphia. It had been pre- 
dicted that he would be a great man before he 
had left Ballynacarrigy. 

"And, sir, are the wages good, and is there 
plinty of mate for all ?" the old man inquired. 

I told him wages were high, and so far as I 
knew there was not a citizen in the country who 
did not have a plenty to eat. 

"Glory to God!" he exclaimed. "Jannie 
— turning solemnly to the old wife — "Amur- 




Photo by Guy, Cork. 

Standing Bare-legged on a Rocky Irish Hillside 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 203 

iky will yet be th' home of this ould mon ! Ye Ve 
resisted me; ye refuse to go with me. Ye '11 
miss me whin I'm gone; but blissed be God, 
I'll come back to Ballaghkeeran a millionaire!" 

We left the old couple piling the peat and 
just reveling in dreams of "that grate counthry" 
over the ocean. 

The smooth road passed through bits of an- 
cient wood of beech, oak, and fir. High stone 
walls of some estate of the "gintry" at times 
shut out the landscapes from view. One dense 
little wood incited my companion to remove 
his pipe and mention the fairy folk which many 
people hereabouts had long thought made 
their home in an ancient Danish "rath" hidden 
by the dense forest growths. The Leprahawn, 
the little miller and shoemaker of the fairies, 
came out, they used to say, on that very west- 
ern slope before us, and there he bathed him- 
self in the glowing sunsets on such fine days 
as these. This set me wondering whether or 
not there was more than one Leprahawn in 
Ireland; but I let him talk on. 

I asked if there were still fairies in Ireland. 

"The ould folks belave in the good people 
shtill. It's so all through this counthry. But 



204 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the young are doubters, and they, too, the ones 
who ought quickest to belave. The national 
schools have done it. The young boys and 
girruls sometimes even doubt there is a divil, 
bad luck to these evil toimes." And the old 
fellow grew thoughtful. 

In the shady, walled-in roadway we met 
two bright-faced old Irishmen, contentedly driv- 
ing a donkey-cart. Stopping to talk to us a 
moment, they asked me a few questions about 
America and "the Irish over there. ,, Seeing 
me adjusting my little hand camera, one of the 
old fellows removed his pipe and said: 

"Sir, allow me jist a word of advice before 
ye touch the button. Please do not do the 
thing naturally expected and let the ass's head 
get where MichaeFs head should be!" Then 
he nudged his companion with great glee and 
broke into a roar of laughter at his companion's 
expense. 

"Glory be to God, sir, f'r the blissed land 
ye 're from!" said one of the old fellows as we 
drove off. 

Before us in the distance was another village, 
stretched along on both sides of the white road. 
The name of the village was Glassan, but my 




Photo by Guy, Cork. 

"Glory to God! Amuriky will yet be th' Home of this Ould Mon! 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 205 

driver said all the people in that countryside 
called it the "Village of Roses." When we 
reached the hamlet, lying peacefully in the 
June sunshine, I observed the peculiar neat- 
ness of the white cottages and the trim roofs of 
tile and thatch. Rambling pink, red, and yel- 
low roses grew over the fronts of the houses, 
even to their eaves, and the air was filled with 
their faint perfume. The village was without 
a sign of life except the presence in the street 
of a baby girl that strolled along in white frock 
and muslin hood, and a constable in a clean, 
new uniform, who was leaning on a banister 
talking to a girl in one of the old doorways. 
When he saw our car approaching he turned 
and walked rather shamefacedly away. 

"The Pinnacle of Kilkenny- West," said my 
driver, pointing to a granite shaft off to our 
right. And he explained that it had been 
erected on that grassy hill to mark the very center 
of Ireland. Only one more hill, he told me, 
and we should be in Lissoy. 

When we reached the summit of the long 
incline I bade him stop the car. Before us 
lay what remained of Auburn, Goldsmith's 
Deserted Village. We sat there for a while in 



206 SHAMROCK-LAND 

silence. There was no real village in sight; 
no settlement so large as Glassan or Ballagh- 
keeran — only silent fields, thick-checkered with 
old stone walls, and now and then a gray cot- 
tage with roof of thatch, a tottering wall, or a 
fragment of a stone gable. 

On the meadows the grasses were in bloom 
— sod-flowers, field daisies, white clover, and 
beds of red poppies and wild roses. The whole 
rich, damp earth was carpeted with dank, 
lush green. The sweet, wild freshness of the 
spring came to us over the meadows that rolled 
away into the north and east and west — simple 
meadows of grass, unworked by the spade and 
unturned by the plow. 

We drove up to an old gate with pillars of 
stone, between which hung a modern farm gate 
of wood. A hundred yards within were some 
tottering gray stone walls which had belonged 
to the home in which the Reverend Charles 
Goldsmith lived when he was rector of Kil- 
kenny-West, and where the boy Oliver spent 
his childhood days. We opened the gate and 
drove into the yard. Almost in front of what 
had once been the doorway some cows lay in 
the dense shade cast by a clump of ash-trees, 




E -5 

3 'l 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 207 

lazily chewing their cuds; and in a shallow 
pool of black water a pair of geese, with their 
half-grown family, were wading about and 
sipping the liquid, now and then protruding 
their necks and making resentful clatter. 

"The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool." 

The line occurred to me. This pool, though, 
could not have been here in the good old rec- 
tor's front yard in those happy days, but the 
geese may have been able to trace their ancestry 
back to those which cackled so joyously when 
Goldsmith was here as a boy. 

An Irishman of middle age came out of the 
weeds behind the ruins of the house and greeted 
us. He said it was truly the old home of Gold- 
smith. The house had formerly had two sto- 
ries, with five windows opening upon the front. 
When it had a roof it was always of thatch. 
I observed that some new corrugated iron, 
painted red, now roofed in a part of the ruins, 
making the place useful as a stable for the cows 
and a shelter for the hay! 

In 1770, when Oliver Goldsmith wrote The 
Deserted Village in London, and received for 
it a hundred pounds, the old home of his youth 



208 SHAMROCK-LAND 

had even then gone into ruins, and in some bit- 
terness of mind he wrote: 

"Near yonder copse where once the garden smiled 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild, 
There where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
The village preacher's modest mansion rose." 

It is rather remarkable that the place should 
have remained in a state of decay for a hundred 
and thirty-five years without even an attempt 
to restore it. But such is the way of Ireland. 

"Out there is the ould gyarden," said my 
new acquaintance, pointing to a weedy lot just 
back of the bare, gray walls. 

I climbed the tottering stone fence, tearing 
down a part of it as I went down on the other 
side. In the field — for it was no longer a 
garden — tall weeds and hay were growing, all 
in bloom. A few gnarled old apple-trees grew 
at irregular intervals, showing that the place 
at some time had been an orchard. In the 
shadow of a high stone wall on the north side 
was an old shrub, apparently a lilac. An althea, 
probably a scion of an older root, grew close 
to a bunch of old-fashioned roses, half hidden 
in the weeds. Wild daisies and patches of 
white clover grew thickly about the spot just 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 209 

back of the house where childish feet had pat- 
tered long ago. In vain I looked for some of 
the bushes where grew the fruit out of which 
the good wife used to make such excellent goose- 
berry wine. They had doubtless been choked 
out by the briars and weeds. 

An old tenant-farmer lived in a double-roomed 
thatched house on the side of the yard in front. 
The house was apparently as old as the Gold- 
smith house, and had probably been used as 
servants' or tenants' quarters. The old farmer 
cordially invited me in and brought forth from 
his little library case a well-worn volume of 
Goldsmith's poems, which he opened on the 
table before him. 

The old wife was busy about an old-fashioned 
fireplace in the adjoining stone-floored room, 
baking potatoes and cooking bacon over a 
smouldering peat fire. Some great pots hung 
on hooks inside the chimney, as they had prob- 
ably done two hundred years ago. It was 
apparent that the cottage, though neat and 
clean, had suffered but few changes in many 
generations. 

The old fellow told me many things of Au- 
burn and the Goldsmith's, and I found that 



210 SHAMROCK-LAND 

his traditional knowledge coincided well with 
the best research of the historians into Gold- 
smith's early life. 

The Reverend Charles Goldsmith, he told 
me, had lived at Pallas, a hamlet in the adjoin- 
ing county of Longford, thirty miles away on the 
north, and there supported himself and a large 
family partly as a curate and partly as a small 
farmer. In 1730, two years after the birth of 
his son Oliver, he removed to Lissoy, to become 
rector of Kilkenny- West, with a salary of £200 
a year. His home was the gray old mansion 
whose ruins were before us. Here the boy 
Oliver played, tutored by a maid-servant, and 
afterwards by a vagabond soldier who taught 
him the love of adventure and the fascination 
of wandering idly through strange lands. 

As for the village, it had been known as Lis- 
soy for centuries; but since the day of the poem 
called The Deserted Village, the place had been 
called "Auburn," from the poet's fanciful title 
for the little hamlet. Some old people called 
the village "The Pigeons," from the name of 
the ale-house and inn which was described 
happily in the poem but mentioned by name 
only in Goldsmith's play "She Stoops to Con- 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 211 

quer." "The Three Jolly Pigeons " was still, 
after an existence of several centuries, the most 
lively spot in Auburn, or, indeed, anywhere 
in that section. 

The old man, in telling me these stories, grew 
thoughtful, and more than once I caught him 
looking — just looking across the green fields 
into the sunny distance. I reluctantly left him 
there in the quiet of a June afternoon, and my 
driver took me up the road a little way to the 
top of the hill, the spot which once had been 
the center of the village. Near the roadside 
grew a thick cluster of whitethorn bushes, mak- 
ing a bower of dense, luxuriant shade. Here 
was the place, my driver said, where grew 

"The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade, 
For talking age and whispering lovers made." 

The original bush had grown here, and for 
years it had been protected by the villagers; 
but one day a carter — "bad cess to his sacril- 
ligious sowl," interjected the narrator — with a 
load of apple-trees allowed his wheel to level 
the bush to the ground. These bushes had 
grown up in its stead. 

Just across the road stood a gigantic oak, 



212 SHAMROCK-LAND 

within whose shade rested a stolid peasant's 
cottage. Two old women stood outside the 
door and welcomed me, giving me the freedom 
of the place. There were two rooms, both on 
a level with the ground. It was damp and cool 
inside. Only a trace of light found its way 
through a small window cut through the thick 
stone walls. Uneven stones paved the floor; 
and above were bare, visible rafters, supporting 
a rat-infested roof of thatch. Around the large 
stone fireplace were a few old skillets and a 
suspended pot; and a hen picked about the 
floor. Adjoining the rooms was a pig-sty that 
contained two healthy-looking shoats. The 
house was interesting because it was one of the 
two hundred and fifty thousand Irish houses 
known in the census reports as "residences of 
the third class," and reputed to shelter a million 
and a half of Ireland's four million inhabitants. 

We drove farther down the road and turned 
into a rocky lane enclosed with tumbling stone 
fences. On a hillside and near the lane stood two 
bare, gray gables of stone. Just below flowed 
a brook, half hidden in the tall weeds and grass. 

My driver stopped the car and pointed to them: 

"The never-failing brook, the busy mill!" 




< 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 213 

The gables of the mill were quite small, 
showing that it had been but a peasant's cot- 
tage fitted up to do the grinding for the neighbor- 
ing peasantry. And as the stream which runs 
past is small, it is evident that grinding could 
be done only in seasons of rain — which, by 
the way, are not altogether too infrequent in 
Ireland. 

I began to look around me. The place was 
inexpressibly lonesome. Some summer insects 
sang away in the tall grass, and now and then 
I heard the croak of an Irish crow. I walked 
slowly down the lonesome lane seeking for some 
sign of life. In the midst of the solitude, 
wrapped in lonesomeness, I found an Irishman 
sitting on a low, tumbling wall in the sunshine, 
slowly smoking his pipe. 

"Good evening, sir," I ventured. 

"And to you, sir, whoiver you be — and ye 
seem a gintleman, heart and sowl," came the 
courteous and flattering reply. 

I told him I was a stranger just rambling 
about the ruins of Goldsmith's Deserted Village 
to see what I could find. I apologized for 
breaking into his reveries, but he assured me 
that no "matarial harrum" had been done. 



214 SHAMROCK-LAND 

"Och! yis," he said, "it is a swate ould 
place. I have lived my loife in its blissed pre- 
cincts — glory be to God ! " 

And he slowly arose and told me to follow 
him. We walked down the rocky lane, it 
getting rockier as we went, until we reached a 
brook, half hidden in the weeds and grass, that 
crossed the path in front of us. My companion 
stopped, slowly took the pipe from his mouth, 
pointed to the brook, and said: 

"No more th' grassy brook reflicts th' day, 
But, chocked with sidges, worruks its weedy way." 

And that was all he had to say about it, but 
it was enough to show that he had poetry in 
his soul. 

We came to a little field that contained some 
dwindling haystacks and a number of ancient 
thatch-roofed cabins of stone. 

Again he stopped and repeated: 

" Besoide yon straggling fince that skirts th' \f ay 
With blossomed furze, unprofitably gay, 
There in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 
Th' village master taught his little school." 

And I was informed that tradition had as- 
cribed to this spot the location of the village 
school where the boy Goldsmith was educated. 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 215 

My companion and I then turned and walked 
up a rocky lane where we found a seat on a 
grassy bank in the shadow of a stone wall. 
Before and below us sloped a long hill, down 
which ran a lane edged in with wild daisies 
and shamrock, with here and there a wild rose 
bush or some straggling wild red poppies. This 
was the very spot, my companion informed me, 
where the poet played as a boy, on evenings 
when the sun went down. 

"Sweet was the sound, whin oft at avening's close 
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; 
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow 
The mingling notes came softened from below; 
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung" — 

My companion led me through a succession 
of lanes and paths to a long squatty building 
with roof of thatch, around and within which 
a considerable crowd of men and boys had 
congregated, thus celebrating some holiday 
which I was told was observed that day through- 
out Ireland. There was a sign above the door 
of the popular place. It was the "Three Jolly 
Pigeons/' where similar crowds met in Gold- 
smith's boyhood days, and 



216 SHAMROCK-LAND 

"Where gray-beard mirth, and smiling toil, retired, 
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, 
And news much older than their ale went round." 

Our arrival at the inn brought out the entire 
contingent of loafers, all of whom solemnly 
arranged themselves in front of the door while 
I got a kodak picture of the building. 

The old millstone had been brought from 
the ruins of the mill and buried in the ground 
at the door of "The Pigeons," where it was 
always on view. 

"Not only supposed to be, sir, but it is the 
i-dentical stone of the old mill," the proprietor 
said with pride in his voice. And he added 
that "over there in the trees," pointing to a 
grove upon a sloping hill upon the east, was 
still standing, though considerably changed, 

'fThe decent church that topped the neighboring hill." 

My driver, who had apparently just awak- 
ened from a dream in the sunshine, drove slowly 
up from the rocky lane where I had left him. I 
shook hands all around and took my seat on 
the jaunting-car. We drove up the lane and 
passed again the ruins of the Goldsmith house. 
The geese were still wading and sipping in the 



GOLDSMITH'S DESERTED VILLAGE 217 

pool, and summer insects sang in the blooming 
grass. All else seemed asleep. 

On the summit of the hill we stopped again. 
Far away in front, resting in the quiet of an 
ancestral grove, and shut out from the world 
by great stone walls, was an ancient home of 
a gentleman: sprinkled over the long hillsides 
on either hand, and nestling in little groups in 
the valleys, were little stone houses with roofs 
of thatch: immediately below us, on the grassy 
hillside, was all that remained of Auburn, the 
Deserted Village. 

The white roads stretched away into the 
distance. Long shadows began to appear across 
the fields of daisies and poppies. We heard in 
the distance the occasional braying of a donkey 
and the faint cackling of geese. Pigs and goats 
moved about the rocky lanes: now and then 
an old man or an old woman could be seen 
walking slowly along. Low-backed cars crawled 
along between gray stone fences up the long 
hills that stretched away beyond our sight. 

This was the very heart of Ireland — there 
could be no mistake about it. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE IRISH WOMAN — ARISTOCRAT AND 
PEASANT 

Broadly speaking, there are but two classes 
in Ireland — the aristocracy and the peasantry. 
The inconsequential middle class is modern and 
artificial, and is found chiefly in north, or "alien" 
Ireland, and in the growing commercial cities 
like Belfast, Londonderry and Dublin. In Eng- 
land, Germany, and the United States the upper 
and lower classes are parasites on the middle 
classes; in Ireland the middle class is a parasite 
upon the serfs and aristocrats. The women of 
this commercial or farming middle class in Ire- 
land are in no marked manner different from 
the women of similar classes elsewhere; it is the 
Irish woman aristocrat who is the most interest- 
ing study in the world, if, indeed, it is not the 
Irish peasant woman. 

Perhaps no other women of the world have 
just that piquancy and vivacity of manner which 
characterizes the women of Ireland. There is 

ziS 






THE IRISH WOMAN 219 

an animation, a force of manner, a spontaneity 
of expression which makes them attractive in 
the extreme. One cannot come in contact with 
them without feeling that with the proper en- 
vironments they might furnish the world a type 
of the perfect woman. 

The real "Irish type," so much extolled, may 
be found not infrequently in Ireland to-day. 
Sometimes it crops out in a remote bogland 
village where the girl with her wealth of Hiber- 
nian endowments lives away her years like a 
flower which is born to blush unseen; sometimes 
it shows itself in some old "castle" of the gentry 
hidden away in a dark grove and shut out from 
the world by tall stone walls. 

The aristocratic class in Ireland is much 
larger than strangers to the island are accus- 
tomed to think. All around the picturesque 
coasts and even far in the remote inland regions, 
at intervals of a few miles, one passes, the estates 
of native Irish titled aristocrats no less cultured 
in any way, and, in some respects, more exclu- 
sive, than the most favored of the aristocratic 
class of England. There is lack of wealth, it is 
true, and sometimes there is poverty that pinches, 
but this does not seriously affect that native 



220 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



pride which, when full grown on Irish soil, out- 
does the pride of any other people. 

The old aristocratic homes are generally far 
from modern, but they are stately and spacious. 
They are situated back from the white walled-in 
roadways in ancestral groves of the densest and 
blackest green. Tall stone walls shut out the 
gardens from the view of the casual passer-by. 
In every section of Ireland this aristocratic class 
may be found, still maintaining the semblance 
of an elegance and a refinement that has disap- 
peared from many a seemingly more favored 
section of the earth. 

In traveling through County Clare, or Tipper- 
ary, or Mayo, or even rocky Galway or Donegal 
on a jaunting-car, you ask your driver the name 
of the family that lives in that castle which 
looms into view in yon dense grove. He will 
immediately out with a vast mouthful of titles 
which almost startles you; and his animated 
manner shows that, in spite of statements to the 
contrary, he is proud of the fact that Ireland, 
too, has its aristocrats whom he was born to 



serve. 



Says Filson Young in his charming book, 
Ireland at the Cross Roads": "Their castles 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 



View from the Home of One of the Gentry. 






THE IRISH WOMAN 221 

surround you, beautiful of name and aspect, 
and wearing an expression of pride and reserve 
upon the worn stone walls that gleam between 
the trees. The houses themselves are often 
strange in architecture, full of builders' con- 
trivances and local makeshifts for what was too 
costly to bring from afar, and when they were 
new many of them must have been ugly. But 
the busy climate, the busy creepers, and busy 
Time soon round off their eccentricities and 
clothe them with a merit greater than that of 
architecture. You see them in all stages of 
repair and decay. There is the house patched 
and mended with loving solicitude as each gen- 
eration succeeds to its heritage of affection and 
encumbrance; where the children go without 
luxuries that the place may be kept up; where 
the boys' education is curtailed, in order that 
there may be no reproach when the will is 
opened. But this is not so frequent a case as 
that other, in which the old house itself is starved 
to pay for the son in the English regiment, and 
where the plaster peels from the walls so that 
his uniform may blaze with the best." 

Here in these old secluded mansions of the 
past have been reared some of the most charm- 



222 SHAMROCK-LAND 

ing women of the world. The Irish people who 
have a reasonable chance generally make some- 
thing of themselves. These, the descendants of 
the Irish nobility and royalty of early days, have 
retained until now the evidence of their good 
blood. Reared in seclusion, breathing the fresh 
air of the country, and getting all the whole- 
someness of good food, and receiving at the 
same time the intellectual nourishment which 
comes from substantial companionship and good 
books, these Irish girls have had an opportunity 
to become marvelous specimens of womanhood. 

They are not obtrusive, these high-born Irish 
girls, nor do they care for publicity in the society 
journals, yet in these old seats of the aristocracy, 
isolated from the world, and passing their years 
in the shadows of gnarled elms, and closely shut 
in with lofty stone walls, they are perhaps freer 
and happier than those who flourish in the 
society of the capitals. 

Physically the Irish girl is a worthy specimen 
of what a woman living close to nature may be. 
The perfect Irish type shows a woman somewhat 
above the medium height, straight, well-formed, 
and exceedingly active of body and limb — all 
an inheritance of a hundred generations of phys- 



THE IRISH WOMAN 223 

ical prowess and unending courage. Their eyes 
are between a blue and a steel gray, bright and 
expressive in the extreme, and always cheerful 
and full of light. Their cheeks are highly col- 
ored, so much so that an American traveler at 
first suspects artificiality; but later he learns that 
it is the dampness of the climate and a lux- 
uriant health which combine to paint these 
roses. 

Their speech is always English, and it is such 
English as one delights to hear. It is said that 
the best English of the world is spoken in Dub- 
lin. The aristocracy of Ireland speaks Dublin 
English. There are antiquated forms and un- 
usual expressions, but they are survivals of the 
older English — evidences of conservatism and 
pride in the tongue. One hears such pronun- 
ciations as "cyar," "gyarden," and "cyarpet," 
for car, garden, and carpet, even in the shadow 
of old Trinity College, in Dublin, spoken with 
that unbounded pride which Virginians display 
when they use exactly similar expressions around 
the walls of old William and Mary or the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. These little mannerisms in 
the speech of the Irish gentry and the polished 
Virginian are but survivals of the best in the 



224 SHAMROCK-LAND 

language of former days. One cannot use 
them unless he is to the manner born. 

Irish girls of the gentlewoman class are not 
idlers. Housework they do not do, of course, 
nor are their energies engaged by women's clubs 
and social routine; yet they have their society 
quietly to mingle with, though this sometimes 
requires long stages across the boglands; and 
there are always outdoor games to keep them 
supple and strong. They are good golf players; 
at squash and tennis they are certainly not bung- 
lers; and around the seashore they develop great 
endurance in swimming in the tide. But above 
all things else, the Irish girl loves a horse. For 
centuries fox-hunting has been what might be 
termed the national sport of Ireland. Wherever 
one may go in the island he will find a hunt 
club where enthusiasm for this exhilarating sport 
is no less marked among the young women than 
among the men. But when the hunting season 
is over the horses are not allowed to remain 
idle. The Irish roads are perfect, and one may 
travel upon them in mid-winter as well as in 
June. A traveler upon these ancient Irish high- 
ways sometimes catches an elusive glimpse of a 
wonderful specimen of glowing young Irish 



THE IRISH WOMAN 225 

beauty disappearing with her horse over a wall, 
or clattering through a lofty stone arch home- 
ward in a dainty trap. 

Servants from among the peasantry do the 
work around these ancient Irish households. 
The cooking is done for the most part in great 
open fireplaces, and the pots are swung from 
hooks as was the custom in the Southern States 
of the Union in ante-bellum days. The excel- 
lent mutton chops, the rich Irish butter, and 
the cream from the luscious meadows insure 
that blooming healthfulness which pure plain 
food, fresh from the soil, can always give to the 
one who chooses to live the simple life. 

Of course there are romances and courtships 
and affairs of the heart. Under the circum- 
stances who could expect anything else ? Let it 
be understood, however, that the outward mani- 
festations of these inward feelings are different 
in Ireland from what they are in some other 
lands. Old customs there may not be broken 
with impunity; new methods of procedure in 
these serious matters are offences on a par with 
such things as treason and sacrilege. The suitor 
must first of all be agreeable to the heads of the 
household; and not long after he has crossed 



226 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the threshold he is expected formally and em- 
phatically to declare his intentions. Unless he 
"means business" from the start it were better 
for him to be rather chary how he allows his 
sense of the esthetic to beguile him into com- 
plimenting the fair young damsel upon the glint 
of her eye or the peachbloom upon hei cheek, 
else she might misunderstand and, confiding in 
her maternal adviser, blushingly report the 
happy steps of her progress; then the gallant, 
if he had no means of escape, would be com- 
pelled to make some mortifying explanations or, 
in case he were an unusually "good match,'' 
run the risk of having papers for breach of 
promise served upon him. 

In many of the old families the priestly con- 
ception of discipline prevails. This means, in 
short, submission to authority — children to 
parents, parents to priests. In a book entitled 
"My New Curate," written by one Father 
Dan, a genial old priest of seventy-odd years, 
there are passages which reveal something of 
the idea of marriage which prevails to some 
extent in Ireland to-day. He is describing 
home life as he has observed it in Ireland 
during his long ministry. He relates a case 




Underwood & Underwood, New York. 



Milking the Goat. 



THE IRISH WOMAN 227 

of genuine merit in this matter of giving up to 
authority: 

"There was no lurid and volcanic company- 
keeping before marriage, and no bitter ashes of 
disappointment after; but the good mother 
quietly said to her child, 'Mary, go to confes- 
sion to-morrow, and get out your Sunday dress. 
You are to be married on Thursday evening/ 
And Mary said, 'Very well, mother,' not even 
asserting a faintest right to know the name of 
her future spouse. But then, by virtue of 
the great sacramental union, she stepped from the 
position of a child and a dependent into the 
regal position of queen and mistress on her own 
hearth. . . . Married life in Ireland has been, 
up to now, the most splendid refutation of all 
that the world and its gospel, the novel, preach 
about marriage, and the most splendid and 
complete justification of the supernaturalism of 
the church's dogmas and practises. ,, 

This indifference to the matter of personal 
selection in matrimonial affairs increases as you 
go down the social scale until among the peas- 
antry a proverb has been crystallized which 
states the truism that "There is not the odds of 
a cow between any one woman and another." 



228 SHAMROCK-LAND 

In many other ways, however, the pride of 
the Irish women, especially of the upper class, 
is almost proverbial. Even though they may 
have lost their estates through negligence or 
mismanagement, and become earners of their 
daily bread at what erstwhile they thought vulgar 
occupations, they still retain their pride; and this 
pride is disseminated and passed on to other 
classes, the shop-keepers and even the peas- 
antry, until even the Irish writers have been 
forced to take notice of it. Hannah Lynch 
takes occasion in a book on French life to score 
her countrymen for their improvidence and their 
almost unnatural pride. Out of all sympathy 
with the recklessness with which the Irish upper 
classes spend money when they have it, only to 
keep up appearances, she writes: 
"Go to Ireland and observe with lamentation 
and indignation the havoc made of home life, 
of family dignity, of the lives of unfortunate 
girls, by the miserable wastefulness of parents. 
On all sides you will hear sad tales of girls, 
obliged to work hard for shocking rates of pay- 
ment, who were brought up in foolish luxury, 
whose parents 'entertained' in that thriftless, 
splash, Irish fashion, drank champagne, drove 



THE IRISH WOMAN 



229 



horses, when the French of the same class would 
be leading the existence of humdrum small 
burgesses." 

Comparing the tradespeople of Paris with 
those of the Irish cities, she says: "I was 
used to the simple, courteous, willing, active 
tradespeople of Paris, who give themselves no 
airs, dress dowdily, live modestly. I found the 
same class in Ireland, even in a small village, 
dressed daily as Solomon in all his glory never 
was, with tailor-made gowns worth ten and 
twelve guineas, and with haughty manners that 
would bewilder a princess of the blood; the one 
cutting the other, Heaven only knows upon 
what assumption of superiority, and all hasten- 
ing from their counters in smart turn-outs, duly 
to subscribe their loyal names to the list of the 
Queen's visitors." 

An Irish family which she had formerly 
known in opulence was forced to give up its 
fine residence and take another in an obscure 
portion of the town. This fact, however, did 
not deter this family from making as great a 
show as possible under the circumstances. She 
describes them in their new quarters: "The 
house I visited was one of a row, a poor, mean 



230 SHAMROCK-LAND 

quarter, where no sane person would look for 
any appearance of affluence. Over the fan-light 
the house rejoiced in an imposing Celtic name 
in three words in raised white letters, not the 
cheapest form of house nomenclature. A gar- 
dener was engaged trimming the infinitesimal 
garden front; the youngest girl, of twelve, was 
mounting her bicycle to career off with a com- 
panion; in the hall were three other bicycles 
belonging to different members of the family. 
The furniture of the drawing-room was new and 
expensive, and a young lady was playing up-to- 
date waltzes on the piano, without a trace of 
concern or anxiety; no sign anywhere of econ- 
omy, of sacrifice, of worry. Yet I knew I was 
entering a house where there was practically 
not a thing to live upon, and where the proceeds 
of a sale that should have gone to the woman's 
creditors had been squandered on unnecessary 
things. One may criticize the meannesses to 
which thrift drives the frugal French, but I 
never felt more near to falling in love with 
what is to me an uncongenial vice than I did 
on leaving my native land after this visit, to 
have commercial dealings once more with people 
not above their business, instead of trading with 



THE IRISH WOMAN 231 

the spurious descendants of kings, whose sole 
anxiety is to make you feel their social supe- 
riority and extraordinary condescension." 

Though some of the gentry have been forced 
by adverse circumstances into the ranks of the 
peasantry, there is no gradual line of demarka- 
tion between these two extreme classes of society 
in Ireland. A great gulf separates them so 
effectually that each has constant difficulty in 
understanding the actions and motives of the 
other. The fact that the Irish aristocracy is to 
a large extent of mixed, or alien, blood does 
not fully account for this, for the lower class in 
many parts of the island, noticeably in the 
north, east, and south, is also of mixed blood, 
there being a blending of the Danish, the Nor- 
man, the English, the Welsh, and even the 
Scotch with the original Irish Celtic; and the 
aristocracy, especially in western Ireland, is 
often of as pure Irish blood as may be found 
anywhere in the island. 

An interesting example of the misunderstand- 
ing between the two classes came before the 
writer. I was traveling on a railroad train be- 
tween Limerick and Galway in western Ireland. 
In my compartment were only two fellow- 



232 SHAMROCK-LAND 

travelers, a priest from California, on a visit to his 
old home in County Clare, and a middle-aged 
maiden lady, known to me to be such before 
she declared the fact, by the frequence with 
which she opened a basket under her seat and 
fed two half-grown cats with milk which she 
carried for that purpose. 

At Ennis the priest left us; the lady and I 
being alone, and she intellectual in appearance, 
I ventured a general remark which elicited a 
response. We thereupon entered upon a con- 
versation which proved most interesting to me. 

The lady was a Miss Jackson who lived, as 
she told me, in a remote and wretchedly poor 
section of Connemara, about forty miles west of 
Galway. She was of the gentry, educated, re- 
fined, to a certain extent literary, and used only 
to the best of everything. In faith she was 
what might be called an Episcopalian, being 
identified with the church of Ireland. Upon 
my expressing surprise that she was connected 
with this church, she was careful to impress 
upon me the fact that there is a considerable 
class of the genuinely Irish who are in no way 
interested in the Catholic church. She fre- 
quently visited Limerick and Galway, and 



THE IRISH WOMAN 233 

sometimes even ventured so far away from 
home as Dublin and Cork, though she admitted 
her means were limited. 

The most lasting impression which her con- 
versation made upon me was her frequently 
expressed fear of the peasantry, which, from 
what she said, must have been intense. When- 
ever she mentioned "the Irish " she spoke with 
bated breath. She took occasion to tell me of 
the Fenian revolt and other uprisings, and de- 
clared that she lived in constant dread of mas- 
sacre at the hands of the lower order. This 
dread of the peasantry, she told me, was shared 
by many of the gentry in the west. All this 
time I was observing that she had features which 
indicated that every drop of blood in her veins 
was Irish. Because her ancestors for genera- 
tions back had been owners of the soil and 
possessors of a castle, she was separately more 
widely from the squatters and serfs upon her 
estate than the average southern citizen in the 
United States is from the ex-slaves of an alien 
and inferior race; while her dread of the peas- 
ants was apparently much greater than that 
which Americans have of the negro. 

This lady told me that old papers in possession 



234 SHAMROCK-LAND 

of her family indicated that she was distinctly 
related to one Thomas J. or "Stonewall" Jack- 
son whose ancestors many years before had 
emigrated to America. The name of her only 
brother was Stonewall, and her family was not 
altogether ashamed of this great man's fighting 
record in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. 

I confess I may have been mistaken, but 
when I looked at this lady's face I was startled 
with the wonderful resemblance which it bore 
to the portraits of the great Virginian. There 
were the steel-gray eyes, the black hair, the firm 
lips, the characteristic nose, and the high brow 
of Stonewall Jackson. Being a Virginian, I felt 
impelled to doff my hat to the very train which, 
disappearing over the boglands, bore her out to 
her home in the rocky barrens of Connemara. 

The Irish peasant woman, though she differs 
greatly from the woman in the castle, is no less 
interesting a study. She is remarkable in many 
ways, though her individualities must be ob- 
served while she is at home and upon her native 
heath. When in young womanhood she comes 
to America as a servant the picturesqueness of 
her life vanishes. She is ubiquitous in Ireland, 
even after three quarters of a century of emigra- 



THE IRISH WOMAN 235 

tion. In Wexford, in Kerry, in Kilkenny, in 
Donegal, in Sligo, and even in Antrim, she may 
be found on every hillside or in every village 
lane. And she bears with her at all times her 
quickness of perception and her vivacityof speech. 

But this peasant woman does not care much 
for home. She spends her time on the road- 
side, on the corners of the village street, in the 
market-places, about the fairs, out in the fields, 
but seldom in the house of which she is mistress 
and in which she was born. The home, or 
rather, the house in which she happens to be 
living and to which she sometimes repairs, is 
centuries old, squatty, and built of loose stones 
mixed with mud. There is no porch in front, 
nor awning, and no front yard. The windows 
are square little holes made through the thick 
walls; the chimney is of mud, and the roof is of 
thatch-straw tied down with ropes. 

Usually a bare, tumbling stone wall encloses 
a bit of space in front of the door, and in this 
space, all bare of grass, though the adjoining 
meadow is covered with beautiful turf, the 
chickens scratch, the pigs root, and the family 
goat browses. Flowers in the dooryard are 
rarely if ever seen. 



236 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Cooking is done in great open fireplaces over 
smouldering peat-fires. There is precious little 
wood to be found anywhere in Ireland, and 
since coal must be brought from England and 
Wales, very little of that commodity is used. 
Even the living-rooms are damp and uncom- 
fortable, and are often shared with the fowls. 
It is scarcely a wonder that the Irish woman 
does not love such a place; but it is indeed 
incomprehensible how she can even call it home 
and yet refuse, in a land of grass, to have a bit 
of turf in her front yard, or in a climate which 
produces wild blossoms in profusion, to plant a 
rose at the doorway or a morning-glory to give 
a touch of color to the little window that lets in 
the morning sunshine. 

The Irish peasant woman generally keeps her- 
self occupied, even if her energies are not usually 
expended in maintaining or adorning her home. 
She usually has her work to do, and she does it 
systematically and well. In some cases the Irish 
woman, like the aboriginal American Indian 
woman, does all the work that is done about 
the place, while Patrick is occupied at the 
public-house or grog-shop, an institution which 
may be found more frequently in Ireland in 



Lawrence, Dublin. 



An old Timer coming Home from the Wood. 



THE IRISH WOMAN 237 

proportion to the population than in any other 
country upon earth. 

In haying season — and Ireland is a hay 
country — the buxom young women and the 
strong housewife go out into the fields to help 
gather in the hay. This work is done, of neces- 
sity, between showers, and sometimes in pene- 
trating mists. They also pile the turfs in the 
peat-bogs, and help to plant, to weed, and to 
dig the potatoes. They assist in stacking the 
wheat and the oats; they drive home the cows 
and milk them, then take the milk to the cream- 
eries in donkey carts. In short, there is scarcely 
any kind of work about a peasant's home that is 
not participated in by the women. 

It is perhaps at the village fairs on fair or 
market days when the Irish peasant women 
enjoy themselves most. At these fairs, denomi- 
nated "pig-fairs,'' "cattle-fairs," "sheep-fairs," 
or "vegetable-fairs," whichever the case may 
be, vast numbers of women, young and old, 
may be seen participating in the activities of 
the day. These fairs and market days are held 
frequently in all parts of the island, and their 
dates are given more prominently even than the 
dates of the assizes, in all the local almanacs. 



238 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Crowds of men, women, and children frequent 
these gatherings to buy, sell, trade, or exchange 
their produce — pigs, chickens, geese, ducks, 
goats, sheep, and cattle. It is amusing indeed to 
visit one of these fairs on a bright spring day 
and watch the happy throngs of traders. 

The writer arrived at a western Irish village 
the day after a fair had been held, and there 
were still marks of the event in evidence. A 
well-informed and witty villager, who appre- 
ciated the picturesque, said the fair was a no- 
table one. At one time, when trading was brisk 
and the crowd largest, a wild pig from out 
Connemara way had gotten loose and had de- 
fied its pursuers. It soon became a thing of 
the whole crowd against the pig — men, women, 
and boys participating — and such strenuosity 
in the way of running, falling, scrambling, yelling, 
and using strong Irish invective had not been 
known in that part of the island since away 
back in feud days. 

Many men and some of the women walk to 
the fairs, but usually they come in low-backed 
market cars, drawn by long-eared donkeys. 
They come sometimes as far as ten or fifteen 
miles to trade or mingle with the crowds. They 



THE IRISH WOMAN 239 

bring with them oftentimes from the mountains 
queer costumes and a quaint brogue; and they 
are seldom so forgetful as to leave their native 
shrewdness behind. They are wonderful bar- 
gain-drivers, and will argue for an hour over 
the split of a penny, or allow a farthing to 
interfere with a trade. When at night they 
drive back home they go with the satisfaction 
which generally attends the close of a day most 
congenially spent. 

Since the rise of the Gaelic League and the 
many societies for the improvement of the condi- 
tion of the Irish peasantry, the women have been 
making a great deal of fancy lace and embroidery, 
and selling it to the tourists who swarm about 
the outer portions of the island. Much of this 
lace and other handwork is sold on the great 
passenger vessels which stop at Queenstown on 
their way to America. One must have his wits 
about him when he seeks to purchase of these 
sharp women traders, else he will find himself 
the poorer from his dealings with them. In 
many parts of Ireland, especially in the west 
and northwest, one may purchase excellent 
woolen shawls and the finest kinds of linen 
drawn work at merely nominal prices. They 



240 SHAMROCK-LAND 

also make a woolen tweed which is much sought 
after by the tourists. Looms are erected in the 
peasants' huts, and thus many of the girls and 
young women find employment that helps to 
keep the wolf from the door of many a house- 
hold. 

Since the establishment of the National Schools 
a chance has been given the girls to qualify 
themselves as teachers. As yet, most of the 
principals of the larger schools are men, but the 
majority of the teachers are women, and most 
of them have come from the ranks of the peas- 
antry. These schools are scattered all over the 
country at intervals of a few miles, and attend- 
ance upon them is compulsory. It is quite 
interesting to visit these schools and study the 
manner of their instruction. Often in summer 
one sees a class out in the yard reciting under a 
tree, one of the female teachers or a girl in a 
higher class hearing the lessons. Irish children 
are early taught the lesson of obedience, and 
discipline is generally easy, though moral suasion 
has by no means superseded the birch rod in 
the matter of maintaining order and producing 
studiousness. 

Church life in Ireland is totally different from 



THE IRISH WOMAN 241 

what it is in the United States. In the cities all 
denominations may be found, with the Catholics 
predominating, the Episcopalians second, and 
the Presbyterians third. There are a few Meth- 
odists, Congregationalists and Jews, but they 
constitute only a small part of the population. 
In the great modern commercial city of Belfast 
the Presbyterians control everything. They have 
a large number of churches, charitable institu- 
tions, schools, and a first-class university. 

In the rural districts, except in Antrim, Down, 
and Londonderry, where the Presbyterians pre- 
dominate, the Catholics have complete control. 
Throughout the east, south, and west of Ireland 
one may expect to find nothing but Catholic 
churches except in the cities and larger towns. 
The country Irish church is indeed a study. 
The peasants every Sunday morning go to early 
mass, and some of them return for regular ser- 
vices at noon. Generally one service a day 
suffices for the average countryman. After the 
service other things are indulged in. Often, if 
not generally, in summer, Sunday is the great 
day for sports, many of the big cricket matches 
being played that day. There is also at times 
Sunday racing. 



242 SHAMROCK-LAND 

In the service itself in these country Catholic 
churches there is often no singing at all. The 
congregations devoutly kneel upon the hard 
stone floors while the priest goes through the 
long services in Latin and preaches a short 
sermon in English or Gaelic, as the case may be. 
Sunday morning after mass is also hiring day in 
large parts of Ireland. The women and girls 
who work out repair to the public squares of 
the village and bargain with farmers for work 
during the coming week or month. 

As a rule, the Irish women do not take an 
active part in church work. There is little for 
them to do since there are no church "societies," 
no Sunday schools like ours, no singing of hymns 
in English, and no church " entertainments. " 
Yet most writers tell us that south Ireland is 
the most morbidly religious country in the 
world. 

The wake is still an institution in rural Ireland 
and among the peasantry who still speak Gaelic, 
though it has not the social prominence it had 
fifty years ago. An Irish peasant will econo- 
mize and hoard for years in order that he may 
have enough to insure him a "foine wake" and 
a "dacent funeral" at the end of his days. 




Lawrence, Dublin. 



A Seller of Blackthorn Sticks. 



THE IRISH WOMAN 243 

Both men and women take part in the wakes, 
though the women are the principal participants, 
and it is they who give it its fullest support. 

Immediately after one dies, or even before 
the sad event occurs, in case it is fully expected, 
the usual formalities commence, and all is gotten 
in readiness for the wake. The priest who has 
been on hand to administer extreme unction 
remains to say mass over the departed soul. 
This is done in the room in which the body 
reposes. 

The corpse is laid out in decent order on a 
table or bed, and is covered with a clean, white 
linen, the most expensive that can be obtained. 
The shroud is adorned with black ribbons if the 
deceased is an adult, or white ribbons if the 
person be unmarried; and in case it is a child 
flowers are used as decorations. Close by are 
laid plates of tobacco or snuff, and around the 
pallet are placed lighted candles. All the neigh- 
bors from far and near, particularly all the 
women, come to pay their last tribute of respect 
to the dead. 

While all these preparations are making the 
most important personage of the entire cere- 
mony is by no means neglected. She is the 



244 SHAMROCK-LAND 

chief mourner or "keener," and she may have 
been brought from a distant neighborhood on 
account of her great talent for wailing; for 
keeners, like poets, are born, not made. The 
word "keen" or "kein" comes from the old 
Celtic word "caoine," which means a lamenta- 
tion for the dead. 

The keener is generally above middle age or 
old. Her voice is strong, and is under perfect 
control, capable of expressing a wide range of 
feeling. She can work herself up into lofty 
pitches of lamentation, with a passionate aban- 
donment to grief which carries everybody in her 
hearing with her. The keener is a poet, a 
singer, and an orator combined, and the keen 
is an improvised poem in Gaelic of irregular 
measures, delivered ecstatically, with a chorus 
from a large number of other women mourners 
present coming in at the end of every stanza. 

There is a tradition that the keen is of super- 
natural origin, and that it was first sung by a 
chorus of invisible spirits over the grave of one 
of the early kings of Ireland. 

The services of a professional keener are de- 
manded far and wide; and her usually aged 
and haggard appearance, together with her 



THE IRISH WOMAN 245 

mighty gifts of voice and feeling, serve to give 
her a high place in the estimation of all respect- 
able people. She is also well recompensed for 
her services. 

The Irish wake usually lasts two or three 
days, during which time the good women folk 
gladly offer their services and lament unstint- 
edly through the long nights. Formerly there 
was much drinking at the wakes "jist to kape 
up the spirits of the watchers," and the men 
consumed vast quantities of whisky at the ex- 
pense, of course, of the bereaved family or 
estate. In recent years it has been considered 
disgraceful to drink to excess at such places, 
and rowdyism and debauchery have largely 
ceased. Still the modern wakes are not what 
might be termed dry parties. 

At the conclusion of the wake the body is 
carried to the graveyard through the door which 
has remained open since the death occurred, 
and the funeral train takes the longest way to 
the grave, sometimes passing through fields, over 
stiles, and across narrow foot bridges, turning 
aside at landmarks, and widely avoiding places 
with evil associations. 

When the body is finally put away into the 



246 SHAMROCK-LAND 

earth the mourning women return home with 
the bereaved family and offer all the comfort 
and help which they are capable of giving. 
Thus this creature of love and emotion is indis- 
pensable, not only in those vocations which help 
to sustain life and in the avocations which 
brighten the way, but most of all in those last 
sad scenes of earth, when the night comes, and 
in some light which is not akin to the dimness 
which shrouds the misty Irish hills, the traveler 
sets out upon his last journey into strange 
lands. 



CHAPTER X 

THE TWO IRELANDS NORTH AND SOUTH 

Late one summer afternoon I boarded at 
an inland Irish town a train bound for Dublin. 
The train was a handsomer one than those to 
which I had become accustomed during my 
stay in Ireland. The compartments of the 
coach which I entered were connected by nar- 
row passages, making out of it what is known 
as a "corridor carriage"; and at the forward 
end there was a large plate-glass mirror into 
which the several lady passengers aboard gazed 
with many evidences of satisfaction. 

I had not long seated myself before my atten- 
tion was attracted by a young man in clerical 
garb who sat opposite me on a plush divan, 
nervously fingering a small volume which he 
had evidently grown tired of reading. This 
priest's face was intellectual in the extreme — 
the forehead high and broad, eyes bright and 
sparkling, and mouth indicating strength of 

character and, best of all, temperate habits. 

247 



248 SHAMROCK-LAND 

I had no idea who this intellectual gentleman 
could be, but I at once concluded that he was 
a man of ability and perhaps of some national 
prominence, as I afterwards found him to be. 

From the time I entered the train this young 
cleric kept his eyes upon me, evidently suspect- 
ing that I was an American traveler. Several 
times our glances met, and each time I ob- 
served an agreeable sparkle in his eye which 
invited friendship. Another recurrence of the 
sparkle, with a similar response from me, 
brought us together with a hand-clasp in the 
center of the aisle. Five minutes more sufficed 
to give each a thorough understanding of 
the other; then he began to tell me about Ire- 
land. He was a brilliant conversationalist, 
thoroughly familiar with every phase of Irish 
life, and he carried upon his tongue a vast 
storehouse of information which he seemed 
to delight to impart to the one who was inter- 
ested in a subject so congenial to him. At 
times when he discussed such topics as the 
Celtic revival of literature and the new move- 
ments for Ireland's uplift his speech fairly 
scintillated with bon mot and epigram. 

He was a priest of the Catholic church, and 



THE TWO IRELANDS 249 

he resided much of his time in Dublin and 
London. This much he told me about his 
personal life. Further than this I felt a hesi- 
tancy in causing him to go, though I delighted 
to hear him express his clear-cut views upon 
Irish subjects, and I drew him out by telling 
him of things I had heard about Ireland and 
asking him if such things were true. An Irish 
Protestant would hardly be willing to believe 
that a Catholic priest could be so liberal in his 
views as he was and so charitable in his remarks 
about Irish Protestantism. He told me that 
many of the criticisms which I had heard and 
read of the Irish Catholic church were true; 
perhaps too true. No doubt I had not heard 
all that could be brought against the church. 
The priests in many cases did have too much 
power; there was corruption beyond any doubt; 
the church in some sections was certainly not 
doing the work it should be doing. He for one 
wished all these corruptions to be exposed; he 
rejoiced at all that had been published against 
these evils, provided these things brought out 
were true, even though the enemies of the 
church had published them. The truth might 
sometimes cause consternation and unrest; it 



250 SHAMROCK-LAND 

might revolutionize society; but he was a Catho- 
lic of such fiber as to believe that whatever the 
truth could injure was not genuine, and if truth 
succeeded in destroying the Roman Catholic 
church he would accept the ultimatum without 
a murmur. But he believed the truth would 
only purge it of its dross and leave the gold 
behind. 

He discussed with me the two Irelands, Prot- 
estant North and Catholic East, South and 
West. Much had been said and written on 
both sides, and he was sure there were two sides 
to this as there were to every other question. 
He was particularly anxious that I should read 
some books which had been written upon Ire- 
land. He wrote in my note-book the names of 
a few of the best recent books. The first of 
these was "Ireland in the New Century," a 
widely-circulated volume by Sir Horace Plun- 
kett, an Irish Protestant and a most enthusiastic 
reformer. Then there followed, "To-day and 
To-morrow in Ireland," a collection of sketches 
by Stephen Gwynn, a charming writer. "The 
Seething Pot," and "An Alien of the West" 
were two excellent pieces of fiction written 
from the Protestant point of view. And there 



THE TWO IRELANDS 251 

was a unique little volume called "Ireland at 
the Cross-Roads" which had had a wide cir- 
culation throughout the British Isles. It was 
perhaps a little wordy, and in places contained 
some tall writing, but it would certainly help 
to a better understanding of modern Ireland. 
"Ireland Industrial and Agricultural," by W. 
P. Coyne, would give me such information as 
I wished in regard to Irish products and man- 
ufactures. 

These and a number of other volumes he 
recommended that I purchase and read. If 
I would go to the National Library in Dublin 
and present the name which he wrote in my 
note-book I would certainly get the best of 
attention at the hands of the librarians. The 
name I afterwards presented with almost mag- 
ical results; though the officials of the library 
I found to be polite and obliging in the extreme 
even to those who came without a password. 

As we neared Dublin the companionable 
young priest told me he had visited America. 
His last trip across the Atlantic was taken for 
the purpose of delivering a series of lectures 
on Ireland at one of the great universities of 
New England. 



:-: SHAMROCK-LAND 

I spent some § in Dublin, which I found 
be a delig ltfiil c I . lands . lih, with 

- BCtS DpICSS . -" . . IgS . B 

- lg sights . ig the capital ol be .and. 

iccessibk I England, it is a cosn - 

argt Pkotestanl filiation, 

. asm pi ^dominates 

iinnbei Out n's inhabitants about 

thai : N; Means, C k nati. 

it is grc '-.ing, 

if not Mid surely. The 

nounding ty, with wonderful 

backg 5 gorgeously 

»d one such as the < ghts tc 

Leaving Dut up the 

t sk :: -: 
B : ell massacn 

::::_;. ere the Battk of the 

[ - ■ . g ii ■ can 
• : 7 . ere Edward Brua 

: r i Kir : ;:' . . icrc 

i : 1 8 Later I visited Nc 

ere I had :. 1 
g - teDectuaJ ::;:': :; '■'.'horn 

Etrers c :" inn o Prom Nc 



THE TWO IRELANDS 253 

I proceeded to Belfast, the great commercial 
metropolis of Ireland. After crossing the river 
Bann in county Down, into Ulster proper, I 
observed a great difference in the appearance 
of the country. The fields were better culti- 
vated, flax and potatoes and oats were growing 
in luxuriancy, and there was exhibited an effort 
at real farming which I had not observed any- 
where in rich South Ireland. The smoke- 
stacks of factories could be observed in all the 
busy towns which succeeded each other along 
the railroad. At Portadown and Lurgan and 
Lisburn there were evidences of much com- 
mercial activity. I had gotten into the flax 
country, and great new linen mills arose on 
every hand. In approaching Belfast one might 
have thought he was entering Glasgow or Pitts- 
burg, so busy and smoky everything appeared. 
Even in the far-outlying suburbs there were 
long lines of handsome new houses, and miles 
of freshly-paved streets. Immense linen fac- 
tories were built even out in the grassy fields; 
and as we entered the city I was impressed with 
the immense stores, churches, warehouses, dwell- 
ings and places of amusement, which had been 
newly erected, or were in the process of building. 



254 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Belfast is one of the busiest cities of the Brit- 
ish Isles. It manufactures the finest linens in 
the world, and builds such steamships as the 
"Celtic" and the "Cedric"of the White Star Line. 
In population it has far eclipsed Dublin, its 
growth during the last quarter century having 
been quite phenomenal. Its population at this 
time is about 400,000, and it is the commercial 
capital of that portion of Ireland known as the 
Province of Ulster. 

It may not be improper here to repeat that early 
Ireland was divided among many tribes and into 
many kingdoms. At the death of Brian Boru, 
which occurred upon the day when he gained 
his great victory over the Danes at Clontarf in 
1 014, the country was divided amongst four 
rulers, each of the four sections being a federa- 
tion of tribes and ruling families. These four 
kingdoms of the north, east, south and west 
bore the Latin names Ulidia, Lagenia, Mo- 
nonia,and Conacia, which have been modernized 
into Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connaught. 
These great divisions of Ireland hold to-day, 
though each is subdivided into a number 
of counties; and the great divisions them- 
selves have no special political significance. 



THE TWO IRELANDS 255 

The province of Ulster comprises fourteen 
counties in the north of the island, all except 
the five northernmost counties being small. 

The Ulster section of Ireland may be said to 
be dominated by the three intensely Protestant 
counties of Antrim, Down and Londonderry. 
Here we find to-day such devotion to English 
rule that our memories must be revived by 
history to realize that Ulster was the province 
which held out longest against English aggres- 
sion; and it was with the greatest difficulty, 
and only after intense effort that it was finally 
subjugated. Even after the country had ap- 
parently been conquered there were repeated 
uprisings and rebellions. In Elizabeth's reign 
O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, and O'Donnell, Earl 
of Tyrconnel, headed a revolt, and after much 
hard fighting were forced to flee from the coun- 
try to Rome where after some years both of 
them died as exiles. James I, whose reign 
began in the year 1603, when Elizabeth died, 
and continued until 1625, used this rebellion 
as a pretext for dispossessing the Irish people 
of their lands, and it was in his reign that the 
"Plantation of Ulster" was made. The land 
was taken away from the Irish and turned over 



256 SHAMROCK-LAND 

to an anti-Irish colony of Englishmen and 
Scotchmen. At one stroke the entire counties 
of Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan 
and Armagh were confiscated. Thus began 
the Scotch settlement of Ulster which continued 
through several generations. To-day north- 
eastern Ulster is not only the most intensely 
Protestant section of Ireland but possibly of 
the entire world. 

One finds in Ulster Ireland, more particularly 
in Antrim, Down and Londonderry, where 
the Scotch and English elements have full pos- 
session of the soil, a Protestantism which never 
relaxes its aggressive antagonism to Catholicism. 
It may be said that the intensest hatreds of the 
world exist between the Scotch-Irish of the 
North, and the Celtic and Catholic Irish of 
the South, East and West of Ireland. Perhaps 
an American citizen can best understand the 
intensity of this feeling by recalling, if he can, 
the bitterness, now happily disappeared, which 
was felt in the United States between the North 
and the South during Reconstruction days. 
Certainly ever since the "Plantation of Ulster" 
these hatreds have existed in Ireland, and the 
centuries have but served to intensify them. 



THE TWO IRELANDS 257 

One day when riding in an electric tram-car 
which ran from the heart of Belfast out to Cave 
Hill, a grassy mountain beyond the suburbs, 
the conductor of the car observed a small 
Masonic pin upon my lapel, and felt permitted 
to engage me in conversation. There were few 
passengers aboard, so we talked together for 
some time. He was surprised that I was bold 
enough to travel through the South and West 
of Ireland with a Masonic emblem in view. 
He was a Mason, but he declared he would 
certainly not be willing to wear a Masonic pin 
through Munster. 

This young man was also a Presbyterian and 
an Orangeman. He explained to me just what 
this latter term meant. The Society of Orange- 
men was a secret order of Protestants organized 
and maintained primarily to oppose Cath- 
olic aggression in Ireland. The order had an 
elaborate ritual and conferred many degrees 
upon its candidates. It was an extensive society, 
and numbered among its members thousands 
of north Irishmen, some of them men of con- 
siderable prominence. 

This society took its name from William, 
Prince of Orange, who after coming to the 



258 SHAMROCK-LAND 

throne with the "Bloodless Revolution " in 
1688, set out to drive the deposed James II 
out of Ireland whither he had come from his 
exiled home in France to stir up a rebellion. 
The two armies met near Drogheda, on the 
eastern coast, where the Battle of the Boyne 
was fought on July 1, 1690. James fled from 
the field and his army was overwhelmingly 
defeated. The cowardice of James moved even 
his followers to scorn. "Change kings with 
us," said a taunted Irish soldier, "and we will 
fight you again." 

The Battle of the Boyne was essentially a 
Protestant victory over the Catholics. Since 
that time this Protestant Society of Orangemen 
have felt called upon to do their utmost in the 
way of resisting the Catholics, and their hatred 
of Catholicism is returned in kind by the south- 
ern Irish. Naturally, the south Irish hate 
British control, and have for many years been 
contending for "Home Rule." The Orange- 
men of the North, more nearly identified with 
the rest of Great Britain, are Unionists, and 
are outward opponents of home rule. The 
favorite political cry of the South, " Down with 
the King!" is answered through the clenched 



THE TWO IRELANDS 259 

teeth of the Orangemen with the irreverent 
imprecation, "To hell with the Pope!" 

Plainly speaking, the Ulster Protestants op- 
pose home rule in Ireland because home rule 
means the rule of the majority, and the great 
majority in Ireland is Catholic. If the major- 
ity in Ireland had been Protestant it is safe to 
say that they would have had home rule gen- 
erations ago. Upon the platforms the gigantic 
controversies which have been carried on were 
based principally upon religious and political 
grounds, the northern Protestants asserting that 
chaos would reign if the government of the 
island were placed in the hands of the Catholics, 
which meant really the priests. 

The business interests of the North have 
also been intensely opposed to home rule. 
When Mr. Gladstone was attempting to get 
his Home Rule bill through Parliament strong 
petitions were presented against the measure 
by the manufacturers of Ulster. Writing of 
this matter, Sir Horace Plunkett says: 

"The intensely practical nature of the ob- 
jection which came from the commercial and 
industrial classes of the North who opposed 
Home Rule was never properly recognized in 



260 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Ireland. It was, and is still unanswered. 
Briefly stated, the position taken by their spokes- 
men was as follows: 'We have come/ they said 
in effect, 'into Ireland, and not the richest por- 
tion of the island, and have gradually built up 
an industry and commerce with which we are 
able to hold our own in competition with the 
most progressive nations in the world. Our 
success has been achieved under a system and 
a polity in which we believe. Its non-inter- 
ference with the business of the people gave 
play to that self-reliance with which we strove 
to emulate the industrial qualities of the people 
of Great Britain. It is now proposed to place 
the manufactures and commerce of the country 
at the mercy of a majority which will have no 
real concern in the interests vitally affected, 
and who have no knowledge of the science of 
government. The mere shadow of these changes 
has so depressed the stocks which represent 
the accumulations of our past enterprise and 
labor that we are already commercially poorer 
than we were.'" 

When in Ireland I talked with the southern 
Irish as well as those of the North about the 
differences, particularly in an industrial way, 



THE TWO IRELANDS 261 

between the two sections. I frequently asked, 
just because I wanted the information, why 
the province of Ulster shows such activity and 
Munster and Connaught are so stagnant. Some 
of those with whom I talked offered one answer, 
some another. Mr. T. P. O'Connor told me 
it was due to the favoritism which the National 
Government had lavished upon Ulster from 
the first Scotch settlement. Prominent editors 
and professional men of the North told me it 
was due to the difference in the stock of the 
people and the religion which they professed. 
They accused the south Irish of being lazy in 
the first place and priest-ridden in the second. 

I talked plainly with a number of Catholic 
priests in the South about this very matter. 
They disclaimed any great interference with 
the liberties and rights of the people. In 
defending the southern Irish, they laid the 
blame for their non-progress upon the evils 
of landlordism and past oppressions on the part 
of the Government. 

I was uniformly well treated by all the south 
Irish with whom I came in contact, and es- 
pecially by the priests whom I found to be 
kind, cordial, good-natured and hospitable to 



262 SHAMROCK-LAND 

a fault. All this, too, in spite of the fact that 
they knew me to be a Protestant and openly 
a member of a secret society which as it exists 
in Ireland they possibly have a reason to dis- 
like. They told me that most of the hatred 
which existed between the two elements in Ire- 
land was mostly in the hearts of the Protestants; 
the Catholics had almost forgotten the old 
antipathies. 

I believe there may be a number of black 
sheep among the priesthood in south Ireland — 
men immoral, dissipated and profane, and who 
are in the ministry for what they can get out 
of it — but to say that even a respectable minor- 
ity are vicious men would, I believe, be stating 
a monstrous untruth. Besides, in the North 
there may be little or no intemperance or im- 
morality among the Protestant clergy, yet from 
what I observed and heard I am inclined to 
believe that there is with them much more in- 
tolerance than with the Catholic clergy; and 
it is indeed a question whether anything can 
be worse than a life spent in nourishing in the 
heart bitterness and hatred towards one's fellow- 
creatures. 

Yet a stranger cannot help seeing the vast 



THE TWO IRELANDS 263 

difference which exists between North and 
South Ireland. It may be observed even in 
the appearance of the people. Throughout the 
South one meets with a preponderance of 
the Gaelic or Celtic characteristics — black 
hair, broad faces, and grayish-blue eyes. In 
Antrim, Down and Londonderry one sees men 
and women of light or reddish hair, blue eyes, 
and very ruddy complexions. The speech of 
the North is quick, vigorous and strong, de- 
cidedly Scotch in its accent. The Irish brogue 
of the South, soft and in some respects 
pleasing, disappears almost entirely when one 
crosses the boundary of county Down into 
Ulster. 

The difference between the two sections 
also shows itself in the fields, which, stagnant 
and reverting to pastures in the South and 
West, are cultivated more and more intensively 
in the North. In the South, outside of a few 
cities such as Cork and Limerick, where some 
activity may be discerned, there are few man- 
ufacturing establishments of any kind; in Ulster 
smokestacks arise on every hand. The differ- 
ence in the industrial respect between counties 
Antrim, in Ulster, and Kerry, in Munster, or, 



264 SHAMROCK-LAND 

say, Sligo, in Connaught, is about such as exists 
between Pennsylvania and New Mexico. 

The religious differences are also great; and 
they make a most interesting study. When in 
Dublin I had access to the official census statis- 
tics first-hand, and I made note of a number 
of important items. 

The last official census of the population 
was taken in 1901. By that census we learn 
that, barring changes made in the seven years 
since that time, which do not materially change 
the proportions, there are 4,458,775 people in 
the island, of whom 3,308,661 are Catholics, 
581,089 Episcopalians, 443,276 Presbyterians, 
and 61,976 Methodists. There are also a 
small number of Unitarians, Congregational- 
ists, Baptists, and other scattering sects in the 
large cities. Of the entire number of Presby- 
terians, 426,177 live in Ulster, leaving a small 
remainder of 17,000 scattered through other 
parts of the island. Of the Episcopalians, 
359,898 dwell in Ulster, leaving 222,000 for the 
rest of the island. It might be stated that 
this church was formerly the "Established 
Church'' of Ireland, precisely as the church 
was also established in England; and it was 




t- 1 e 

J -8 

£ as 

c .-a 

.a s 

> £ 

p i- 



< 






THE TWO IRELANDS 265 

supported by the Government. Mr. Glad- 
stone succeeded in having the church disestab- 
lished in 1868. The number of Methodists 
in Ulster is 47,172, leaving about 15,000 for 
other sections. Offsetting this large number 
of Protestants in Ulster, there are in that prov- 
ince 699,152 Catholics, the vast majority of 
whom inhabit the eleven small southernmost 
counties, leaving Antrim, Down and London- 
derry almost purely Protestant. 

In all Ireland the Catholics constitute 74.20 
per cent, of the population; the Episcopalians, 
13.03 per cent., the Presbyterians, 9.94 per 
cent., and the Methodists, 1.39 per cent. In 
the decade between 1891 and 1901 the Roman 
Catholics lost 6 per cent, of their population; 
the Episcopalians, 3 per cent.; and the Pres- 
byterians, .04 per cent. While the Catholic 
and the Episcopal churches are gradually los- 
ing ground in proportion to the population, 
the Presbyterians are gradually gaining. This 
gain of the Presbyterians is all shown in Ulster. 

The Irish Presbyterian church is a most 
interesting body, vigorous and aggressive in 
the extreme, with strong missionary tendencies. 
These Presbyterians are descended not only 



266 SHAMROCK-LAND 

from the settlers who came at the time of the 
" Plantation " under James, but also from Eng- 
lish and Scotch non-conformist refugees, and 
officers and soldiers of the armies of Cromwell 
and William III. They have at this time five 
synods, 36 presbyteries, 660 ministers, and 
106,665 communicants. 

In his readable book, "Ireland at the Cross- 
Roads," Mr. Filson Young tersely and epi- 
grammatically contrasts the different sections 
and religious beliefs of Ireland. He scores 
strongly the Catholic church for its despotic 
power over the masses, but states that he would 
score any church that would enthrall a people 
as Catholicism has done Ireland. He also 
writes scathingly of the Presbyterians of the 
North for their narrowness and bigotry; and 
he reminds the Episcopalians, with an ironical 
touch, of their pride and unwarranted pomp. 
His description of the Ulster village, with its 
sects, is unusually instructive as coming from 
one who has observed these matters from child- 
hood. Thus he writes: 

"In every little village of the North of Ire- 
land the population is strictly divided into at 
least three camps — Presbyterians, Roman Cath- 



THE TWO IRELANDS 267 

olics, and Episcopalians. Of these the Pres- 
byterians will probably be a virile community, 
containing the best yeoman stock of the coun- 
try, and representing the bulk of the agricul- 
tural interest. The Catholics will number in 
their fold the very poor and those engaged in 
labor, with many of the servant class, and an 
occasional unprosperous farmer, and a pros- 
perous publican; while the Episcopalians will 
be a rather weak and nondescript community, 
consisting of those classes, whether tradespeople 
or professional, who regard themselves of social 
importance, and who have the mental qualifica- 
tions for conforming in religious matters to 
their views of what is socially expedient. 

"And of the three camps the Presbyterians 
and Episcopalians will certainly have dealings 
with each other, and a kind of friendly rivalry, 
as of those who should oppose each other in 
the same cause. But neither of them will 
have any dealings at all with the Roman Cath- 
olics. It will be enough that a man should 
be a Roman Catholic for him to be refused 
employment in their affairs if a Protestant is 
available. 

"However small and meager the social re- 



268 SHAMROCK-LAND 

sources of the place may be, no one would 
dream of inviting the priest to any social enter- 
tainment; and, indeed, if such an invitation 
were given it would hardly be understood. 
Priests, being in the minority there, are far 
more tolerant and kindly in their views than 
their Protestant brethren, just as in other parts 
of Ireland, where they are in the majority, they 
are apt to apply the boycott in their turn in 
just the same way. 

" But the two sets of people might belong to 
different races and be of different colors for all 
that they will have to do with each other." 

As to the chance of the final triumph of Prot- 
estantism in Ireland, and the stamping out of 
Catholicism, as England formerly tried to do, 
and as some Protestants still hope to see accom- 
plished, the writer says: 

"You might stamp out Catholicism, but it 
would be by stamping out the Catholics; you 
might destroy religion, but not before you have 
destroyed the nation; and although I am con- 
vinced that Roman Catholicism is in its essence 
anti-national, I am also convinced that it is 
twisted like ivy about the very life of Ireland; 
and though it will destroy the tree if the growth 



THE TWO IRELANDS 269 

continues, yet I am sure that you could not 
uproot the one without fatal damage to the 
other." 

It would appear that the intensive farming 
and the manufacturing of Ulster act as a check 
to emigration. The population of Munster 
in the last decade decreased 8.29 per cent., 
and Connaught decreased 10.08 per cent., 
while Ulster decreased only 2.28 per cent. 
Leinster in the East, including the city of Dub- 
lin and eight counties, showed a decrease of 
3.36 per cent., though every one of the eight 
counties showed a decrease except county Dub- 
lin. With the exception of this county, and 
counties Antrim and Down in Ulster, each of 
which increased at the rate of about 7 per cent., 
all the other twenty-nine counties of the island 
decreased in population, ranging from 13.60 
per cent., in the case of Monaghan to 5.10 per 
cent, in the case of Londonderry. Many of 
the towns in the South and West, such as Lim- 
erick, Galway, and Kilkenny, showed sub- 
stantial decreases, while Dublin increased at 
the rate of 7.60 per cent., and Londonderry 
city at the rate of 20 per cent. ; while Belfast, a 
city which, as I was informed by Mr. T. P. 



270 SHAMROCK-LAND 

O'Connor, "will not have even a policeman 
if he is a Catholic," increased at the rate of 
27.08 per cent., a rate of increase greater than 
that shown by some of the most progressive 
American cities. 

The province of Munster in South and South- 
west Ireland, which includes the counties of 
Cork, Waterford, Tipperary, Limerick, Kerry, 
and Clare, had at the last census a population 
of 1,075,075, having decreased from 2,404,460 
since 1841. Of the present population the 
Catholics number 1,007,283, and the Protes- 
tants 67,792, a proportion of 94 per cent, to 
6 per cent. 

Michael J. F. McCarthy, a native Irish Cath- 
olic lawyer, in a recently-published sensational 
book, says: 

"The priest is lord of Munster. The news- 
papers see through him, but they flatter him; 
for in himself alone he represents a large cir- 
culation and advertisement business. The pro- 
fessional men privately despise him, but are 
forced to beg for his influence. The traders 
and farmers partially see through him, but he 
infuses them with such a spirit of laziness and 
cowardice, and so distorts their minds in youth, 



THE TWO IRELANDS 271 

that, while they are always in a state of smoth- 
ered repudiation of his pretentions, they pass 
through life without assailing him. All classes, 
but especially the laborers, fly from him in 
thousands across the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. 
The decrease in Catholic Munster within the 
last decade was 8.29 per cent., while in Presby- 
terian Ulster it was but 2.28 per cent. ,, 

The book from which the above paragraph 
is taken is entitled "Priests and People in Ire- 
land." Together with its companion volumes, 
"Rome in Ireland" and "Five Years in Ire- 
land," I found it for sale on book-stalls through- 
out the British Isles. These books are of large 
size, and are illustrated with photographs. 
Each is literally crammed with statistics in- 
tending to prove the deteriorating effect of 
"Priest Rule" in Ireland. The writer con- 
tends that he is a native-born, typical southern 
Irishman and a loyal Catholic, though he de- 
clares eternal hatred of the Irish priest. The 
priests look upon him and speak of him as 
being a turncoat. McCarthy has lectured in 
various parts of Ireland and England upon this 
subject so congenial to him, and has run some 
serious risks at times. In Ulster, according 



272 SHAMROCK-LAND 

to his own accounts, he met with great audi- 
ences and was hailed almost as a hero. 

The Irish National Schools, North and South, 
have served within recent years greatly to 
decrease illiteracy in the island. It is said, 
however, that the schools of Ulster surpass 
those of the South and West. The census of 
1 90 1 reveals the fact that the percentage of 
illiteracy among the Roman Catholics was 16.00 
per cent.; among the Episcopalians, 7.30 per 
cent.; and among the Presbyterians, 4.90 per 
cent. This would seem to indicate that the 
Presbyterians of the North are more careful to 
have their children to learn to read and write. 
In considering this matter, however, one must 
consider the vast numbers of older people of the 
South and West, all genuine Irish and Catholics, 
who never had the opportunity to attend school. 

All recent writers upon Ireland have been 
more or less free in the matter of contrasting 
the North and the South, or, perhaps more 
correctly, in contrasting the Protestant and 
Catholic elements of the country. Mr. Stephen 
Gwynn, in his book "To-day and To-morrow 
in Ireland," has some particularly fine para- 
graphs bearing upon the subject: 



THE TWO IRELANDS 273 

"It would be hard to exaggerate the separate- 
ness, the cleavage, that runs through the whole 
country. . . . Broadly speaking, at the Prot- 
estant houses you do not meet Catholics. They 
are kept apart by instinctive antipathies — 
instincts maintained, no doubt, by the delib- 
erate policy of the Catholic church. ... It 
would be hardly too much to say that the Cath- 
olics in Ireland form among themselves — with- 
out intention and even without knowledge — 
a huge secret society, like all secret societies, 
amenable to a social code. 

"The historic genesis of this attitude is not 
hard to find. Throughout Ireland, on the 
whole, Protestants are the possessors. Cath- 
olics the dispossessed. They are dispossessed 
not less for their religion than for their race; 
and their religion is to-day in many cases, per- 
haps in most, the only mark of their separate 
origin. It has been the lasting bond, indeed 
the one and only positive link of union among 
them — for hate is only a negative tie. Perse- 
cution and penalization were directed against 
the religion, and in their clinging to what was 
attacked, they fell away hopelessly from the 
attacking force — which was the law. And 



274 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the secret law which grew up among them was 
so indissolubly bound up with their religion, that 
the religion could not, if it would, shake it off. 

"Catholicism is a strong religion, perhaps 
the strongest in the world, but to no people in 
the world does it represent so much as to the 
Irish. It is the one thing they retained. They 
lost their land, they lost their language, and 
with it their traditional culture, but they kept 
their religion; and when their religion ceased 
to be attacked they kept the habits and the 
instinctive organization that they acquired in 
defending it. The Irish peasant who passes 
for an expansive, confiding creature, is in real- 
ity the most reserved of human beings. . . . 

"Taking it all round, throughout Ireland 
wherever Catholics are in the majority the upper 
classes are Protestants, separated from the 
lower class not so much by any great difference 
in the possession of money (since the successful 
shopkeeper is apt to be better off than the aver- 
age landlord) nor in education, as by a radi- 
cal divergence in social code and religious 
creed. . . . 

"Where Protestant and Catholic see most of 
each other in Ireland is over sport; and in 



THE TWO IRELANDS 275 

these cases, the Protestant shoots, the Catholic 
carries the bag; the Protestant hooks the salmon 
(if he can), the Catholic gaffs it. I should be 
the last to deny that real friendship grows up 
out of this relation; but the mere fact that 
people meet exclusively as employer and em- 
ployed, or patron and client, stamps a special 
character on the intercourse. It is not the 
same thing as playing together on a side; rather 
the relation, in establishing itself, marks the 
essential separateness." 

Sir Horace Plunkett, from whose book, "Ire- 
land in the New Century," I have already quoted, 
says, in contrasting the two great sections of 
Ireland: 

"Protestantism has its stronghold in the 
great industrial centers of the North and among 
the Presbyterian farmers of five or six Ulster 
counties. These communities, it is significant 
to note, have developed the essentially strenu- 
ous qualities which, no doubt, they brought 
from England and Scotland. In city life their 
thrift, industry and enterprise, unsurpassed in 
the United Kingdom, have built up a world- 
wide commerce. In rural life they have drawn 
the largest yield from relatively infertile soil. 



276 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Such, in brief, is the achievement of Ulster 
Protestantism in the realm of industry. It is 
a story which, when a united Ireland becomes 
more than a dream, all Irishmen will be proud. 
"But there is unhappily another side to the 
picture. This industrial life, otherwise so worth- 
ily cultivated, is disturbed by manifestations 
of religious bigotry which sadly tarnish the 
glory of the really heroic deeds they are in- 
tended to commemorate. It is impossible for 
any close observer of these deplorable exhibi- 
tions to avoid the conclusion that the embers 
of the old fires are too often fanned by men 
who are actuated by motives, which, when not 
other than religious, are certainly based upon 
an unworthy conception of religion. . . . This 
bigotry is so notorious, as for instance in the 
exclusion of Roman Catholics from many re- 
sponsible positions, that it unquestionably reacts 
most unfavorably upon the general rela- 
tions between the two creeds throughout the 
whole of Ireland. The existence of such a 
spirit of suspicion and hatred, from whatever 
motive it emanates, is bound to retard our pro- 
gress as a people towards the development of 
a healthy and balanced national life. . . . 



THE TWO IRELANDS 277 

"From such study as I have been able to 
give to the history of their church, I have come 
to the conclusion that the immense power of 
the Irish Roman Catholic clergy has been 
singularly little abused. I think it must be 
admitted that they have not exhibited in any 
marked degree bigotry towards Protestants. 
. . . My own experience distinctly proves that 
it is no disadvantage to a man to be a Protes- 
tant in Irish political life, and that where opposi- 
tion is shown to him by Roman Catholics, it is 
almost invariably on political, social, or agra- 
rian, but not on religious grounds." 

Further contrasting the North with the South, 
he writes: "I have learned from practical ex- 
perience amongst the Roman Catholic people 
of Ireland that while more free from bigotry, 
in the sense in which that word is usually ap- 
plied, they are apathetic, thriftless, and almost 
non-industrial, and that they especially require 
the exercise of strengthening influences on their 
moral fiber. . . . North and South have each 
virtues which the other lacks; each has much to 
learn from the other; but the home of the 
strictly civic virtues and efficiencies is in Prot- 
estant Ireland." 



278 SHAMROCK-LAND 

In describing the intelligence and love of 
knowledge which the people of Ulster display, 
Sir Horace agrees entirely with Michael Mc- 
Carthy in his conclusions upon the same sub- 
ject. In "Rome in Ireland" the latter writes 
as follows: 

"I have never yet gone into a Presbyterian 
house in which I did not find one or more well- 
filled bookcases occupying a place of honor; 
and the acquaintance with every phase of 
current thought to be found amongst the Pres- 
byterians is no less characteristic of them than 
their love of travel and the extent of their topo- 
graphical knowledge. Let others depict the 
shortcomings of the Presbyterians if they will 
— and the carping critics are far from few in 
number — I shall not be deterred from calling 
attention to their good points, or from record- 
ing my own experience of them for that section 
of humanity who condescend to read what I 
write. ,, 

I carried with me to Ireland letters of intro- 
duction to prominent people in Newry, Belfast, 
and Ballymoney in North Ireland. I found 
these people courteous, kind and attentive, and 
happy to make my acquaintance. I was im- 



THE TWO IRELANDS 279 

pressed wherever I went in the North with the 
comfortable dwellings, the extreme cleanliness 
of everything about the premises of the homes, 
the attempt at making and keeping the home 
attractive, and, above all, with the great habit 
of industry which seems to pervade the very 
atmosphere. 

In the market town of Ballymoney, in Antrim, 
where resided some distant kinsmen of a dis- 
tinguished Virginia author and scholar, who 
had given me personal letters of introduction 
to them, I found a congenial company of people 
who reminded me of cultured Bostonians or 
Richmonders. In this small town of three 
thousand people, situated in the midst of a 
fine farming country, with its big barns remind- 
ing one of the Shenandoah and Cumberland 
Valleys, there were three Presbyterian churches, 
all with different pastors and active organiza- 
tions. There were practically no poor people 
in or around the town, and all whom I met 
appeared healthy and happy. The Roman 
Catholics had a small chapel in the town where 
the few inhabitants of that faith worshiped. 

Along the side-tracks upon the railroad I 
saw several car-loads of mowing and reaping 



280 SHAMROCK-LAND 

machinery; and I had the curiosity to go and 
learn that these up-to-date farming implements 
were products of American factories. Thus 
Ulster Ireland is linked closely with a similarly 
progressive land across the sea. 

I visited a number of other towns in the North, 
and was much pleased with the general appear- 
ance of prosperity and thrift throughout that 
section. I was particularly interested, how- 
ever, in the people of the North, the Scotch- 
Irish, that sturdy and indomitable stock which 
our American school histories teach us, went 
forth to provide the brawn and brain which 
opened up the forests of America, fought back 
the savage tribes, laid the foundation of the 
nation, and at length wrested freedom from 
England's grasp. 

While traveling through Antrim and Down 
I felt sometimes that I was treading upon hal- 
lowed ground. I was within two miles of the 
low-lying stone cottage, with roof of thatch and 
floor of stone, which sheltered many generations 
of the ancestors of President McKinley; and I 
traveled over long stretches of clover-scented 
meadow and densely-green hillside, every mile 
of which contained some sturdily-built home 



THE TWO IRELANDS 281 

within whose rough stone walls had lived the 
ancestry of such makers of America as Andrew 
Jackson, James Buchanan, John C. Calhoun, 
Ulysses Grant, Stonewall Jackson, and multi- 
tudes of other statesmen, soldiers, lawyers, 
preachers and citizens who will be known to 
history as among the greatest men who ever 
lived in the world. 



CHAPTER XI 

RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 

It is largely as a result of the unprecedented 
loss of half its population in half a century 
that the present condition of rural Ireland is 
so interesting and so remarkable a study. The 
depopulation of Ireland has largely changed 
the life of the people and brought about vast 
differences in the face of the country. The 
Ireland of to-day is by no means the Ireland 
of sixty years ago. 

Owing to lack of labor, the former intensive 
cultivation of the soil has to a large extent ceased. 
Tillage has been superseded by pasturage. 
Thousands of acres that in former years were 
teeming with laborers planting and working 
potatoes and turnips, and harvesting wheat 
and oats, are now turned out in grass; and 
the song of the laborers and the music of the 
whetting of scythes have been hushed, and in 
their place can be heard the tinkling of sheep- 
bells and the lowing of cattle. 

282 




s < 

c „, 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 283 

In all parts of the middle, south, and west 
of Ireland one may see evidences of this re- 
markable change, — more remarkable since the 
signs of former possession and cultivation are 
still evident. For sixty years the young and 
vigorous farm-hands have been dropping the 
hoe and spade and emigrating to America, 
leaving behind them to attempt their work 
their infirm old parents and their little brothers 
and sisters. The children dream through their 
boyhood and girlhood of the time when they 
in turn can go down to Queenstown and sail 
on the big ship for New York or Boston. Whole 
villages have thus been robbed of their young 
people, and vast country sections that once 
teemed with vigorous farm laborers now con- 
tain but a handful of men who are capable of 
hard labor. Indeed, one of the most striking, 
and at the same time most mournful, sights in 
rural Ireland to-day is the unusually large num- 
ber of despondent-looking old men and women 
who mope absent-mindedly about the road- 
ways of the country-sides or the alleys of the 
hundreds of semi-deserted villages. Their sons 
and daughters have grown up and gone to seek 
their fortunes in the West. Not one in a hun- 



284 SHAMROCK-LAND 

dred of them will ever return to hoe and spade 
the rocky old Irish fields again. 

A brief study of the rise of Ireland's popula- 
tion and its subsequent decline, even though 
some statistics may be involved, is by no means 
unprofitable or uninteresting. Indeed, Ireland's 
history in this respect reads almost like a ro- 
mance. 

Let it be understood, then, that Ireland is an 
island off the northwestern shores of Europe, 
situated so far to the north that if it were in 
the Western hemisphere it would be bound per- 
petually in snow and ice; but since it is in the 
path of the Gulf Stream and certain warm 
winds, its climate is mild, its summers are 
humid and cool, its winters damp and com- 
paratively warm. The dank moisture of the 
island prevents a great amount of freezing, and 
the grass remains green the year round. 

The area of Ireland is 32,583 square miles. 
This is slightly less than the area of Indiana, 
about two-thirds that of New York State, or a 
little over half that of England. 

We have no way of knowing the number of 
Ireland's inhabitants in early days. Perhaps 
before the sixteenth century it would have been 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 285 

impossible to take even a comparative census, 
so crude were the methods then employed, and 
so difficult must it have been to obtain accurate 
information from the people themselves. But 
in 1593, near the close of Elizabeth's reign, 
Moryson visited Ireland with Lord Mountjoy 
and estimated just at the close of the Civil War 
that there were 700,000 people in the island. 
In 1672 Sir William Petty estimated, on the 
basis of five persons to each house, that the 
population was 1,100,000. By 1785, according 
to Hearth-Money Collectors, the number of 
inhabitants was 2,845,932. It was during the 
century between 1750 and 1850 that Ireland's 
population increased by leaps and bounds; for 
the first complete parliamentary census, which 
was taken in 1821, revealed the fact that Ire- 
land had 6,801,827 inhabitants. By 1845 this 
large population had increased to 8,295,061. 
At this time the population to the square mile 
was 254, while that of Scotland was only 97, 
and England but 280. Then Ireland held one- 
third of the population of the British Isles. 
Her hills fairly swarmed with people, all of 
whom, in a manner which can hardly be under- 
stood, eked out a living altogether from the 



286 SHAMROCK-LAND 

soil, since there was no manufacturing in the 
island and comparatively no commerce. 

It was at ^this period of Ireland's intense 
activity in getting a living for its teeming pop- 
ulation that every foot of land which could be 
worked was put into a state of cultivation. 
The bogs were drained, the woods were all 
cut down, and the mountain-sides were lev- 
eled. The limestone rocks that jutted up out 
of the ground were dug up and crushed for the 
roads or made into fences which still remain. 
The soil was worked with the spade and fondled 
until it was of the consistency of ashes, and 
produced abundantly. 

It was just at the time when every foot of 
ground was required to bring forth to its ut- 
most to fill the hungry mouths of the teeming 
thousands that the potato crop failed. In 
1846 and 1847 ^e famine killed thousands of 
Irish people. It was then that the rush was 
made for America. Each census since 1841 
has shown a decrease in population, until that 
of 1 901 reveals that there are but 4,458,775 
people in Ireland, or, adding the decrease since 
that time, about half the population of 1845. 

Still, one must not think of Ireland as being 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 287 

a deserted country. Its population per square 
mile is even now 137, or a much greater den- 
sity than exists in such progressive states as Ohio 
and Illinois, or, leaving out Philadelphia and 
New York City, of the states of Pennsylvania 
and New York. Nor must one under any cir- 
cumstances imagine that Ireland is a worn-out 
country, with ragged or uneven appearance. 
There could not be a greater mistake than this. 
To the traveler the soil of the greater part of 
Ireland appears to be inexhaustibly rich, with 
a covering everywhere of dense and luxuriant 
green; while its fine limestone roads, its pic- 
turesque stone fences, its wonderful mountains, 
its gray lakes, its placid rivers, and its undula- 
ting fields, with their carpets of green plush, 
make it one of the most entrancingly beautiful 
countries upon earth. The depopulation of 
the country has but served to increase its beauty; 
for all the old landmarks remain — castle, 
tower, bridge and cross — and the little farms 
that were formerly diligently worked with the 
spade are now covered over with a sward of 
green. 

Still, a traveler in Ireland cannot help being 
depressed with the apparent stagnation which 



288 SHAMROCK-LAND 

exists on every hand. And it is not hard to 
account for these conditions. For whatever 
other obscure evils may be at the root of 
that evil, the emigration craze alone has 
been sufficient to demoralize every indus- 
try and occupation of Ireland. No country 
can stand the loss of the vigorous and active 
half of its people without suffering dreadfully 
from it. Stagnation in business and all kinds 
of industries that require labor is the first and 
most evident result of such a condition. In 
Ireland to-day we have a case of the survival 
of the unfittest. 

One must remember, in studying this matter, 
that the northern portion of Ulster can in no 
way said to be stagnant. It is this Ulster sec- 
tion of Ireland, progressive as the best portions 
of England and Scotland, which makes all the 
agricultural and commercial statistics of Ire- 
land, bad at the best, appear as well as they do. 

It is in large portions of Leinster, in Mun- 
ster and in Connaught that the real "Irish 
question" is centered. In these portions of 
real and typical Ireland the conditions are 
most interesting, even if in some respects they 
are unpleasant to dwell upon. Even in such 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 289 

wonderfully beautiful and apparently prosper- 
ous sections as County Cork and the "Golden 
Vale of Tipperary" the conditions are yearly 
growing more acute. It seems but nothing 
that the soil is rich and the outward conditions 
favorable. The immense loss of population 
and the consequent stagnation in business and 
agriculture has depressed the life of the coun- 
try, and disheartened those who are left in 
possession of the soil. 

The census of 1901 gives some interesting 
statistics as to the occupations of the Irish 
people. Of the 4,458,775, given as the total 
population, 131,035 were classed as "profes- 
sional"; 255,144 as "domestic"; 83,173 as 
"commercial"; 936,759 as "agricultural"; 
656,410 as "industrial"; and 2,494,958 as 
"non-productive and indefinite." The inclu- 
sion of considerably more than one-half of the 
total population of the country in the class of 
non-productives tells in no uncertain way the 
real story of rural Ireland. It is this aimless- 
ness in affairs which has within recent years 
been furnishing material for so much discus- 
sion and agitation for reform on the part of 
the publicists and government experts. 



290 SHAMROCK-LAND 

The counties of Kerry, in the southwest; 
Galway, on the middle western coast; Mayo, 
the next county to the north of Galway; Sligo, 
and Roscommon, in the northwest, and some 
of the counties in the north central portion of 
the island are among those which present rather 
remarkable agricultural conditions at this time. 
In most of the counties named the population 
is still considerable, and in some cases con- 
gested. The soil is in many places rocky, and 
along the mountain-sides is so rough that the 
use of elaborate farm machinery, if ever dreamed 
of by the inhabitants, would be quite impos- 
sible. There are no cities and few towns of 
size in these sections, and there are no mills 
or factories of any description. The commerce 
is inconsiderable, though harbors are numerous 
along the coast; and railroad traffic, as might 
be expected, is small. The living that the 
people get must come from the ground. 

Throughout the counties named, as well as 
in most of South and West Ireland, there are, 
as stated in a previous chapter, but two classes, 
— the gentry, who own large portions of the 
land, and the peasantry. The former are sel- 
dom seen, because even in this day many of 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 291 

them are non-residents, while the latter are 
ubiquitous. The masses of the people live 
generally in one-story stone or mud houses, 
scattered over the long mountain-sides, or clus- 
tered in the little one-street villages peculiar 
to Ireland. Around these houses one generally 
finds a small garden patch, in which are raised 
potatoes and other hardy vegetables. In front 
of the doors are small inclosures, or yards, 
walled in with stones, sometimes so loosely 
poised upon each other that one may through 
the interstices see into the sheep-walks beyond 
their bounds. Here, around the doorway, the 
family goat browses; and here the pigs, the 
geese, and the chickens are wont to gather, 
indefatigably seeking and as freely obtaining 
uninterrupted entrance into the living-room of 
the dwelling. 

The interiors of the houses are too often 
comfortless and bare. It is seldom that more 
than one room out of a possible two or three 
has a wooden floor. The others are paved with 
roughly-fitting flat stones, and are generally 
cold and damp. In the rural districts there 
are no stoves or ranges, so cooking is done over 
the open fire in large fireplaces. Peat is uni- 



292 SHAMROCK-LAND 

formly used for fuel except near the coasts 
where coal is sometimes imported from Wales. 
In the interior the use of coal and wood for 
fuel is unknown. 

There are no verandas or porches to the 
Irish rural or village dwellings; the windows 
are small square holes made in the thick walls, 
and stopped with from four to eight panes of 
glass. Ventilation is unprovided for. Fre- 
quently a pigsty or a stable for the cow is in- 
closed under the same roof of thatch, which is 
a coating of sedge or straw from six inches to 
a foot in thickness fastened down with ropes. 

Such dwellings as described above exist all 
over Ireland. It is rather remarkable how 
little variation there is from the type. They are 
termed "third class" by the government. The 
last census shows that there are 251,606 of such 
in Ireland. The dwellings called "fourth class" 
are the lowliest kinds of huts, with dirt floors 
and one room with one window. There are 
to-day in remote rural sections of Ireland 9,873 
such huts, inhabited by probably thirty or forty 
thousand people. 

The "second class" houses are of a some- 
what better type, especially when found in such 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 293 

cities as Limerick, Cork, Dublin and Belfast. 
In the better agricultural districts, as in Antrim 
and Down, Tipperary, Wicklow, and Kil- 
kenny, they may also be found. Many of the 
second class houses are covered with slate, 
though in the interior thatch is used. There 
are 521,000 second class houses in all Ireland. 
The houses of the "first class" are the "castles'' 
of the gentry and landlords scattered through 
the country and the houses of the prosperous 
business and professional men of the cities. 
There are 75,000 of these in the island. 

The landlord question is still the one all- 
absorbing topic in Irish affairs, as it has been 
for the past three centuries. From the time of 
Cromwell, and before, the Irish have chafed 
under landlord rule. For many years the ten- 
ure system was unregulated by the government, 
and the landlord had the entire disposition of 
his estate. As might be expected from such a 
state of affairs, there was constant friction and 
no little bitterness between the landlord and 
his tenants. The Irish peasantry for genera- 
tions contended that it was not to their advan- 
tage to improve lands upon which, as a result 
of the improvement, heavier rents would be 



294 SHAMROCK-LAND 

exacted. Thus the habit of unthrift and un- 
tidiness was fastened upon the people. 

The government, in 1868, through the first 
Gladstone land act, recognized the right of 
the Irish tenant to compensation for improve- 
ment effected by him in the soil which he had 
cultivated, should he be deprived of his holding 
or should his rent be changed. This was the 
beginning of legislation, which, through suc- 
cessive acts of Parliament in 1870, 1871, and 
1876, enlarged and modified by more recent 
enactments, resulted in the passage of a meas- 
ure, in 1903, that promised for a time to settle 
effectively the landlord question for the coun- 
try. This great act provided for the purchase 
of lands from the landlords by the small farmers 
and peasants, the government advancing the 
necessary cash to the purchasers at a nominal 
rate of interest. Every student of Irish affairs 
has for the past five years been watching with 
the closest interest the operations of this gigan- 
tic piece of legislation. For two or three years 
after the act went into force the fullest advan- 
tage was taken of its provisions by the rural 
Irish, and the large sums set apart by the gov- 
ernment to be applied in loans to purchasers 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 295 

were taken up greedily in all parts of the coun- 
try. Many of the priests of the South and 
West, quick to recognize the advantages of the 
offer, bought land upon the usual terms. 

So loud were the demands for additional 
appropriations to be applied in these land loans 
that three years after the original land act an 
additional $50,000,000 was set apart by the 
government to facilitate the operations of the 
act and to remedy the stoppage of sales of land 
through lack of funds. 

In selling the land to their tenants for the 
cash advanced for them by the government, 
the landlords have generally demanded as a 
price that amount which the land would pro- 
duce in rent in twenty-two and a half years. 
Some have demanded more, some less, than 
this. The average purchase of the tenant is 
his dwelling, sometimes an outbuilding, and 
from six to twenty acres of land. The price 
paid, based on the rent value, varies from $20 
to $60 an acre. 

An actual case of purchase is as follows: A 
small farmer lived upon a tract of i6| acres of 
land in a good agricultural section. For some 
years past he had been paying to the landlord 



296 SHAMROCK-LAND 

an annual rent of £6 12s., or about $33. He 
wished to purchase the land, and it was offered 
to him by the landlord for £150, or about $750. 
He made the necessary application to the 
authorities, borrowed the money from the gov- 
ernment, and paid the landlord for the place, 
gaining from him a deed in fee simple. The 
government retained what might be termed a 
first mortgage upon the place, which is to be 
released at the expiration of forty years, and 
after forty yearly payments of £4 4s., or about 
#21. In forty years from 1904 the purchaser 
will have paid to the government about $840 
for his farm. He began also to pay taxes upon 
the place as soon as it was listed in his name. 
His first year's taxes amounted to 26s., or about 
$6.50. This amount may be increased or 
diminished according to the valuation put upon 
the property and the rate of taxation adopted 
from year to year. 

During 1907 and the early part of 1908 there 
was much friction in the congested districts of 
western Ireland, and even in better parts of 
the island, caused by the fact that landlords 
refused to sell their best lands to bidders, but 
offered only their very stony mountain lands 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 297 

or unproductive boglands, retaining their best 
lands for pasturing large herds of cattle. The 
peasantry, becoming disgruntled on account 
of such conditions, often in the dead of night 
would drive the cattle from the lands of the 
landlords, thus running serious risks of arrest 
at the hands of the constabulary. Taking all 
things into consideration, there has been re- 
markably little trouble as a result of the 
operation of this land act which is altogether 
revolutionary in its processes; and it is almost 
certain that in time it will serve to bring about a 
complete solution of the land problem in Ireland. 
As the rents for the past fifty years have to a 
large extent been paid by American citizens, 
so the farmer or tenant who buys land generally 
does so with a view of paying for it in yearly 
instalments sent to him by children or relatives 
who have emigrated to the United States. It 
would be impossible to estimate the amount of 
money which is sent to Ireland every year from 
this country. Private inquiry sometimes brings 
to light the fact that almost every cent of the 
rent and taxes paid by certain villages and 
sections of counties was provided by American 
Irish. 



298 SHAMROCK-LAND 

The above statement will not appear so 
strange if one remembers that there are 595,210 
people of Irish parentage in New York City 
alone, which means a population greater than 
the combined Irish populations of Belfast and 
Dublin, the two largest cities of Ireland. There 
are in Boston 160,000 full-blooded Irish people; 
185,000 in Chicago; and 225,000 in Phila- 
delphia, not to mention the hundreds of thou- 
sands scattered through other sections of the 
country. These American Irish are as a rule 
industrious and steady, and they command 
good wages. One may very readily see how 
it is that Ireland to-day is supported so largely 
by American money. 

Indeed, it is necessary for the native Irish 
to receive help from somewhere, otherwise 
about half the population could not be kept 
from starvation. The Earl of Dunraven, pres- 
ident of the Irish Reform Association, in a 
pamphlet which was strewn broadcast through 
the British Isles, declares that out of the 500,- 
000 holdings in rural Ireland, fully 200,000 
might be classed as uneconomic, or inca- 
pable per se of maintaining a family. Unless 
the purchaser has some other means of sup- 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 299 

port besides the proceeds of the land, he will 
not be able to pay for his property or live 
except in the most abject poverty. Starva- 
tion, then, in the case of purchasers of such 
property is kept off by money which is sent 
from America. 

Of the 300,000 economic holdings, the vast 
majority are self-sustaining, not from tillage, 
but from dairying and stock-raising. Dairy- 
ing has within the past nine years received an 
impetus through the efforts at cooperation made 
by the Board of Agriculture and Technical 
Instruction, which was created in 1899. This 
board has provided instruction for the people 
in dairying in many schools, and has established 
creameries throughout Ireland, with expensive 
machinery for stripping butter from milk fresh 
from the cow. To these public creameries 
dairymen haul their milk and receive credit 
for each gallon brought according to its butter- 
producing value. Tests are applied to every 
can of milk received. The establishment of 
these creameries, insuring cleanliness and a 
regular supply of butter, has succeeded in open- 
ing up a fresh market for Irish butter in the 
great manufacturing centers of England where 



3 oo SHAMROCK-LAND 

enormous quantities of butter are required; 
and has stimulated dairying in almost every 
part of the island. The cooperative plan may 
be said to be even yet in its infancy, and it must 
prove what it will accomplish if universally 
patronized. 

Stock-breeding among the small farmers is 
increasing with the decline of tillage. Most 
writers upon the subject look with great dis- 
favor upon the change. Stock-breeding is gen- 
erally considered to be a branch of industry 
fraught with considerable danger to the small 
capitalist. In Ireland especially cattle and 
sheep-raising is a speculation rather than an 
investment, and, like all species of gambling, 
is attended with great risk to the man of small 
capital. The depressing outlook of the rural 
life of England and Scotland, so much com- 
mented upon, is brought about by the passing 
of the land from under the plow and its being 
given over to stock-raising. In these countries 
there is a saying that "the men decay as the 
kine increase. " In Ireland, conditions are still 
worse. Those who are forced to leave the 
Irish farms for lack of work do not drift into 
native towns and cities to engage in manufac- 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 301 

turing or mercantile pursuits, as they do in 
England and Scotland, but emigrate to America, 
leaving a remnant of the old and infirm and 
unfit to engage in the "lotus-eating occupation 
of opening and shutting gates" for the cattle 
and sheep to pass through. 

Rural Ireland has gained largely in the num- 
ber of its cattle and sheep even within the past 
five years, but it has lost to an even larger 
degree in the activities and productiveness of 
its people in all other lines on account of the 
stagnation in agriculture due to this rush towards 
pasturage. It is a well-known truth that the 
decline of tillage in any country, whatever be 
the cause, involves an enormous waste of na- 
tional resources. In Ireland the worst possible 
results have come from such a condition. 

The Irish tenant, or independent farmer, of 
the present time generally turns out the larger 
part of his land in permanent pasture. Upon 
this he grazes from two to ten cows, three or 
four calves, sometimes a small flock of sheep, 
raises half a dozen pigs, and sometimes keeps 
a horse or a donkey. Hardly half of the ordi- 
nary Irish small farmers keep a horse. The 
small cultivation which the land gets is done 



302 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



with the spade. All farm work, except in a 
few favored sections, is done in the most prim- 
itive manner. A modern plow or mowing- 
machine, outside of Ulster, would be looked 
upon with amazement by the Irish farmer. 
There are large tracts of land in central and 
western Ireland that have not known a plow 
for a century. The land is down permanently 
in grass, and an occasional top-dressing of the 
soil with fertilizer in the spring is practically 
all the attention which is paid it. 

In those few sections of the island where the 
land is still worked intensively splendid yields 
result. Wheat, oats, potatoes and all kinds 
of hardy root crops yield richly, and in the 
north flax can be most profitably raised. It is 
indeed remarkable why the large land-owners 
and farmers with large holdings do not go more 
fully into the intensive cultivation of the soil. 
The English market is at their doors, and 
prices are always good. Labor, too, may be 
had cheaply if only a permanent demand is 
made for it. Every summer thousands of 
laborers from central and western Ireland go 
over to Scotland and England to work in the 
harvest fields. They return late in the autumn 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 303 

having spent most of their summer earnings 
in the Scotch and English public-houses. If 
the same wages could be had in Ireland they 
would remain at home. 

Both men and women work in the fields, the 
men commanding a somewhat larger wage 
than the women. In those sections where 
labor is in comparatively active demand, the 
prices average from $2.25 to $3.00 a week. In 
county Roscommon laborers get 9s. id. ($2.18) 
a week; in Sligo, 8s. nd. ($2.14); and in Mayo, 
8s. 9d. ($2.10). Out of this wage the laborer 
must board himself. It can readily be seen 
that the large farmer, with proper management, 
might profitably employ large numbers of men 
and women, upon such terms, to produce vege- 
tables for the English market. 

In Kerry and Galway a good stout farm-boy 
is often employed for £10 ($50) and board a 
year. It is hardly necessary to add, however, 
that when these farm-boys do succeed in rak- 
ing and scraping together enough money to 
pay their steerage fare from Queenstown to 
New York they lose no time in shaking the 
Irish dust from their feet for good and all. 

In the greater part of Ireland the soil is black 



3°4 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



and rich, — far richer than the average Amer- 
ican soil. Nowhere in the world does grass 
grow more luxuriantly, and in no other coun- 
try is the land so little encumbered with weeds, 
briers and undergrowth. Much of the coun- 
try was originally rocky, but long cultivation, 
particularly in the days when the island was 
overflowing with people, has put the loose 
stones into walls and fences, while many have 
been crushed in making the Irish roads, which 
are as fine as any in the world. 

Considering the natural fertility of the Irish 
soil, and its adaptability to almost all kinds of 
grain and root crops, one is naturally surprised 
that, with such cheap labor, the crops for the 
past few years have been so small. Some com- 
parisons here will certainly not be amiss: 

The total wheat crop for Ireland for the year 
1907 was 1,325,000 bushels, which was valued 
at $1,127,000. Fifteen of the States of the 
Union produced more than ten million bushels 
each, and five of them produced more than 
forty million bushels each. The wheat crop 
of Indiana, the same size as Ireland, was valued 
at $30,000,000. Ireland produced 6,700,000 
bushels of barley, a crop particularly well 




u 

"5b 
"J5 

6 

o 
> 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 305 

suited to the soil and climate. The State of Min- 
nesota produced 26,600,000 bushels, while five 
other States produced over 14,000,000 bushels 
each. The oat crop of Ireland is one of its sta- 
ples. In 1907 this crop amounted to 50,000,000 
bushels, valued at $24,000,000. The oat crop 
of Iowa was 108,000,000 bushels, valued at $41,- 
000,000. Illinois produced 101,000,000 bushels. 
The Irish climate, always cool and moist, 
favors the production of all kinds of root crops. 
Turnips, swedes, mangolds, cabbage, and pota- 
toes were formerly grown in enormous quan- 
tities. Indeed, since its introduction into the 
island by Sir Walter Raleigh, late in the six- 
teenth century, the potato had grown by the 
middle of the last century to be the chief staple 
of Ireland. In many parts of the island it was 
the sole support of the people. Throughout 
central and western Ireland in the early half 
of the century there were thousands of peas- 
ants who hardly knew the taste of either meat 
or bread. Potatoes and buttermilk constituted 
their food supply. The cultivation of the potato 
superseded that of wheat and other cereals, 
and after it had come into universal use, fewer 
pigs were raised and even less meat was con- 



306 SHAMROCK-LAND 

sumed than before. Between 1800 and 1845 
perhaps three-fourths of the Irish people were 
wholly dependent upon the potato for support. 
The potato crop of Ireland is still its largest 
production. In 1907 this amounted to about 
111,000,000 bushels, worth about $40,000,000. 
The total potato crop of the United States was 
298,000,000 bushels, worth $183,000,000. New 
York State produced 41,000,000 bushels, worth 
$23,000,000, a sum more than half the total 
valuation of the entire crop of Ireland. With 
all its rush towards pasturage, the total hay 
output of Ireland in 1907, sown grass and per- 
manent grass, was but 5,000,000 tons. New 
York State produced 6,000,000 tons and a 
number of other States produced almost as 
much. These staple crops, with the exception 
of flax, which is produced largely in North 
Ireland, are practically all that Ireland must 
fall back upon for a livelihood. The climate 
is too severe for Indian corn, cotton, sweet 
potatoes, tomatoes, or the thousand and one 
small crops that help to make the American 
farmers independent. If it were not for their 
cattle and sheep the Irish could not make a 
living on the island. 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 307 

The farmers and others in rural Ireland might 
be helped by mining, milling, timbering, and 
other such pursuits, but none of these things 
is done there. The country is said to contain 
iron, silver, gold, lead, and copper, but not an 
ounce of these metals has been produced in 
fifty years. The coal-beds are very small, 
and the output is inconsiderable. The Irish 
rivers might furnish enormous power for manu- 
facturing if they were properly harnessed, but 
this has never been done. There are not even 
grist or flouring mills of any consequence, and 
the very nature of the case excludes saw and 
wood-working mills. 

An American who travels in Ireland begins 
to wonder as soon as he looks about him and 
sees the stagnation of the country why it is that 
the Irish people themselves or their wealthy 
sympathizers among the English or the Scotch 
do not devise some means for supplementing 
the earnings of the small farmers and laborers 
in some of those ways so well known in the 
United States. This might be done by estab- 
lishing mills or factories, even upon a small 
scale, throughout the rural section where labor 
is so cheap and agriculture so restricted. Some 



3 o8 SHAMROCK-LAND 

say, in answer to this, that Irish labor is so 
uncertain and the Irish coal-beds so small that 
Ireland can never hope to be a manufacturing 
country. The few factories in Ireland to-day, 
outside of a few cities, count for but little in 
the life of the great masses of Irish people. 

The rivers of Ireland are particularly well 
adapted to bear commerce and furnish power; 
but to-day they are of little more use to the 
Irish that the Hudson was to the aborigines 
four hundred years ago. The Shannon, a 
wonderful stream flowing for 240 miles through 
a naturally fertile and beautiful country, with 
tumbling towers and ruined castle walls on its 
banks, is without commerce except in summer 
when one lone daily steamer is run for the ben- 
efit of tourists and transients; and from its 
source in the beautiful hills of Cavan to the 
magnificent bay at its mouth, there is not a 
single mill or factory outside of the old and 
declining city of Limerick. The same condi- 
tion of stagnation exists on the Suir, the Lee, 
the Blackwater and the Erne. All these streams 
might be dammed and harnessed, and made 
to produce electric power sufficient to manu- 
facture millions of dollars* worth of woolens 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 309 

and linens, and convert central and southern 
Ireland into a rich and busy country. 

The condition of stagnation in Ireland's 
rural life has within the past two or three years 
brought to life many schemes for the reawaken- 
ing of the old island to a conformity with mod- 
ern progress in living. The Gaelic League 
was organized in 1893 by the Irish people them- 
selves for the purpose of reviving the old Irish, 
or Gaelic, tongue. Its object primarily has 
been and still is to revive interest in the study 
and publication of existing Irish literature and 
to cultivate a modern literature in Irish. In 
this way the effort is made indirectly to create 
a new national and racial pride and to stimulate 
all kinds of industry. 

In a large number of the national schools 
the young people are engaged in learning this 
difficult and peculiar language of their ances- 
tors. The Irish claim that this course will 
serve to give back to the Irish the dreams in 
which Irish nature revels and upon which Irish 
nature thrives. Many practical people are op- 
posed to the movement upon the grounds that 
a revival of Irish sentiment with a useless lan- 
guage will serve only to separate Ireland still 



3 io SHAMROCK-LAND 

further from all that is practical and progress- 
ive. Isolation, they say, with too much senti- 
ment, has been to a large extent the cause of 
Ireland's undoing. Still, the League is doing 
a great work in the island, and is astoundingly 
popular with the great masses of the Irish peo- 
ple, especially the Irish-speaking people of the 
West. It issues two or three periodicals and 
publishes books in the old Erse or Gaelic tongue. 
During one year more than a quarter of a mil- 
lion copies of a Gaelic book were sold among 
people who were never known to purchase or 
read an English book. Friends of the Gaelic 
League and those who are pushing its work 
declare that it will eventually result in the re- 
making of Ireland upon the old national lines 
by creating a pride in the language and the 
race among all classes of the people. It may 
be said to the credit of the League that it is 
strictly non-political and non-sectarian. It yet 
remains to be seen just what this rather remark- 
able movement will accomplish in the way 
of rejuvenating the old land. 

The various efforts of individuals and of 
government boards to stimulate Irish agricul- 
ture, such as those put forth by the Irish 



RURAL IRELAND AS IT IS TO-DAY 311 

Department of Agriculture and Technical In- 
struction, the Earl of Dunraven, President of 
the Irish Reform Association, Sir Horace Plun- 
kett, and others, have met with a fair measure 
of success. The establishment of creameries, 
as already mentioned, is one of the innovations 
made by these agencies. Scotch fishermen, 
with boats, have been employed to teach the 
Irish of the west coast profitable methods of 
fishing; technical schools have been founded in 
conjunction with other schools in various parts 
of the country, and small markets have been 
established for the sale of Irish home products. 
Hand-weaving, spinning, knitting, embroider- 
ing, shirt-making, lace-making, and crocheting 
have been developed somewhat within the past 
few years, especially in mountain regions of 
the West, where poverty most abounds, in 
order that the women might be able to help 
keep the wolf from the door. 

This is a period of Irish history which gen- 
erations of the future will probably look back 
upon as the beginning of an era of change and 
development when Ireland emerged from a long- 
continued state of depression and stagnation, 
brought about by centuries of misrule, into a 



312 SHAMROCK-LAND 

condition of freedom and happiness to which 
the richness of her soil, the gentleness of her 
climate, the strange beauty of her scenery, and 
the genius of her people entitle her. 



CHAPTER XII 

SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 

The legend relates that long, long ago — 
far back in the dim ages of the past, ere civi- 
lized folk had ever set foot upon the Green Isle 
— an expedition went out from some distant 
country for the purpose of conquering the 
strange peoples upon this rich island of the 
sea. The little ships were nearing the moun- 
tains which stood along the coast when the 
leader arose in his boat and declared that who- 
soever of all the men should first touch the shores 
should possess the land and become sovereign 
of the kingdom; and no one might ever dis- 
possess him, but he should hand it down to 
his heirs forever. One dark-browed man, with 
strength and power written upon his face, 
strove with all his might to reach the land first 
of all, but his ship was heavier than the rest, 
and his oarsmen were weak, and another boat 
seemed about to push ahead of him to the 

shore. So the man of beetling black brow 

313 



3H SHAMROCK-LAND 

ground his teeth, seized an axe, and severed 
his left hand at the wrist. With his right he 
threw it far out on the sandy shore. Thus the 
first of the O'Neils, tradition says, came into 
Ireland to possess it and to rule it forever. 

Hence a sinister hand, gules, became the 
armorial ensign of the Province of Ulster. 
That red left hand has for centuries struck 
terror into the hearts of those families or 
tribes or clans or peoples who in one man- 
ner or another gained the enmity of that 
fierce race of kings who first ruled upon the 
Irish shores. 

As one travels in leisurely manner from Bel- 
fast northwestwardly to the ocean which bathes 
the picturesque northern coast of Ireland, he 
meets with many a hoary ruin that holds in 
the vineclad tower and tumbling keep innu- 
merable stories of those warlike O'Neils who 
through all the centuries of written and tra- 
ditional Irish history were connected in one 
manner or another with almost every impor- 
tant event which occurred. 

On the northern shore of Lough Neagh, 
known in olden times as Lqugh N'Eachach, 
jutting out into the waves upon a peninsula, 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 315 

are the ruins of Shane's Castle, one of the most 
famous castle remains of Ireland. Here, al- 
most covered up in the shade of great gnarled 
trees, are tumbling walls, and vine-covered 
turrets, and ruined towers, and danksome 
keeps — silent and mournful reminders of those 
old days of Ulster 

"When her kings, with standard of green unfurled, 
Led her Red-Hand knights to danger ; — 
Ere the emerald gem of the Western world 
Was set in the crown of a stranger." 

Within and about the tottering ruins are 
marks of the olden times. Here was for a 
thousand years, and is to-day (if you will but 
listen to the stories told by neighboring peas- 
antry), the primal and original home of the 
Banshee. She made her home here to keep 
watch over the family of the O 'Neils. When- 
ever one of them was killed in battle, or was 
lost at sea, or passed quietly away in some 
other castle fastness, all the night long her 
shrieks could be heard down in the dense woods, 
upon the lake shore, high up in the great old 
castle, or in the vaults and dungeons under- 
neath. Oftentimes her bitter wail could be 
heard coming from the graveyard where mul- 



316 SHAMROCK-LAND 

titudes of the O 'Neils were buried in the yew- 
trees' shade. And even in modern days, long 
since the last O'Neil was deprived of temporal 
power, the Banshee has been heard repeatedly 
to wail. Her cries come at night whenever a 
descendant of the O'Neil family dies, it matters 
not whether he is of the gentry or is but a lowly 
peasant dispossessed of his land. If he is an 
O'Neil or has O'Neil blood in his veins, his 
death will be announced in and about the ruins 
of Shane's Castle by the Banshee who for so 
many generations has kept watch over the 
O'Neil family. To hint a doubt of the pres- 
ence and residence of the Banshee here would 
be considered by the old folk as something near 
akin to blasphemy. "Och! and did I not hear 
the wail myself that night the ould master 
died?' one will tell you. Or "Indade, sir, 
and I have seen her virry gyarments glisten 
there against the wall o' stormy nights whin a 
death had occurred in the ould family." And 
they will describe to you the mournfulness of 
her wail until you actually become unwilling to 
ramble too far alone among those black old 
ruins or about the ancient graves. 

Along the lake and on the island near the 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 317 

shore are innumerable ruins of castles and 
round-towers; and they say that underneath 
the waves there are many others that have long 
ago sunken out of sight. For there are many 
strange legends connected with the old place. 
In Caxton's history, published in England in 
1497, there is an account of how this the larg- 
est lake of the British Isles originated. The old 
book earnestly relates that ''there were men in 
this contre of evyle lyvinge" — this was why 
calamity overtook them. And in the following 
manner their sins were visited upon them: There 
was a well in the neighborhood where all came 
to be supplied with water. It was a magic well, 
and had to be kept covered at all times. One 
day it chanced that a woman went to the well 
to get water, and being in a hurry she "hyed 
fasd to hyr chylde yd wepd in ye cradele," 
leaving the well uncovered. That night it 
overflowed and made a lake out of the val- 
ley. Entire towns and villages, they say, 
were submerged. The old record recounts: 
"Fysshers of yd water see in ye grounde under 
ye water rounde toweres and hyghe shapen 
steeples and churches of yd land." 
Sings the poet about it: 



318 SHAMROCK I AND 

"On lough Neigh's banks as the fisherman stravs. 

When the clear soft eve's declining. 
He sees the round towers ot* other d.u s 
In the wave beneath him shining. - ' 

At Antrim. .1 small town near Shane's Castle, 
one sees in the deer-park which formerly be- 
longed to the castle a stone which once marked 
the burial-place of a large number of the O'Neils. 
It has a rather remarkable inscription upon it: 
" This vault was erected in the year lOOo by 
Sheari MacPhelim MacBryan MacShean O'Neil, 
Esq., as a burying-plaee for himself and the 
family of Clandekn ." 

A few miles north of Shane's Castle is Bally- 
mena, a prosperous flax-market town, about 
which are innumerable ruins and landmarks. 
Here is Ballykee) Moat, a rath fifty feet high, 
and a great amphitheater which is probably of 
Druidical origin. Not far away on the east is 
Sliemish, a mountain upon which St. Patrick 
lived as a shepherd for several years after he 
first came to Ireland. Near Sliemish is a 
Druid's altar of much impressiveness. 

Traveling between Ballymena and Bally- 
monev on a train bound for Portrush. I often 
broke the rules of the Irish railways bv thrust- 




/ 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 319 

ing my head far out of the window of my com- 
partment, where I had been some time alone, 
to see some interesting bit of scenery or some 
unusual sight along the way. I noticed that 
another head was often outside of another 
window in the compartment adjoining mine. 
I did not even suspect that my neighbor might 
be a fellow-countryman until at the little sta- 
tion of Glaryford, where the railroad crosses 
the River Clogh, I heard him with a keen 
Yankee voice comment upon a bit of scenery 
against the grassy hillside. Then I spoke. 
Within five minutes he had transferred his 
handbaggage to my compartment, and we were 
talking like old friends. "Look at me!" said 
he, standing up. "I'm actually one-sided from 
riding in a jaunting-car so much. But I've 
seen it all, sir, actually all in south Ireland!" 
We talked together, comparing notes, until we 
reached the northern coast, when we separated 
to meet again the next day and remain together 
during a tour of Scotland. He was a New 
Yorker, a Master of Arts of Yale, and his 
greatest pleasure was found in joking with 
the railroad officials and country peasants, 
and playing upon the pianos at the hotels and 



320 SHAMROCK-LAND 

charming all the many who stopped to hear 
his music. As we sailed away from Ireland he 
assured me that while he had traveled exten- 
sively he knew of no country comparable to 
Ireland in the rare beauty of its scenery or in 
the kindness of its people. Whenever we came 
in contact with American tourists in Scotland, 
which was frequent, I overheard him advising 
them to include Ireland in their itinerary. I 
mention these facts only to show how all Amer- 
icans are impressed with Ireland after having 
traveled through its interior. 

Passing Ballymoney, we were soon nearing 
the end of our day's journey. The country 
about us was beautiful. Rich meadows lay 
on every hand, with the River Bann down on 
our left, flowing placidly down to the ocean. 
In the western distance were round grass- 
covered mountains that reeked with greenness. 
Turning due north at Coleraine, a prosperous 
little city of very early foundation, we soon 
came in sight of the ocean. Ah! how it gleamed 
and glittered in the light of the summer sun! 
How blue, and pure, and tender it appeared, 
begirt with green shores and beset with emerald 
islands! 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 321 

We left the train at Portrush, a clean, new 
town on the coast which is rapidly becoming 
the most popular seaside resort in Ireland. 
Every day in summer crowds come over the 
railroads to bathe in the ocean, stroll along 
the coast, and play golf on the Portrush links. 
On that day there were many visitors in the 
town, all of prosperous-looking people. Among 
them were many children who came to bathe 
in the ocean. They undressed among the 
rocks upon the sands, got into a slip of a gar- 
ment, and waded out into the water where 
they enjoyed themselves to the utmost. 

An electric line runs from Portrush east- 
wardly along the coast to the Giant's Cause- 
way, eight miles away. It was a particularly 
bright afternoon when I made the trip. We 
ran instantly out into the green meadows, rich 
with all kinds of summer bloom. The golf 
links, stretching along the coast, were swarm- 
ing with players, as, I was informed, was the 
case almost every agreeable day in summer. 
They are the best links in Ireland, and so far 
as scenery goes perhaps the most happily sit- 
uated links in the United Kingdom. For here 
begins a view of sea-coast which for genuine 



322 SHAMROCK-LAND 

beauty and grandeur is acknowledged to be 
one of the most charming in the world. 

As we glided to the top of a smooth green 
hill and began descending on the other side 
the beauty of it all dawned upon me. The 
richness of the country was remarkable. On 
our left was the sea, densely blue in the sum- 
mer haze, and on our right, towards the south, 
was an undulating country of meadows and 
fields — the picture of pastoral peace. Five 
miles away, in front, arose the mighty cliffs at 
whose base lay one of the wonders of the world. 
Down through meadow and orchard and daisy- 
flecked field we went, turning now here, now 
there, while the rich sweetness of summer blos- 
soms and new-mown hay was swept in to us 
from the fields. 

The car men had talked with me in Portrush 
before we started, and they had agreed to 
point out to me the places of interest and stop 
the car for me to get some of the prettiest views. 
On the way the man who handled the trolley 
and collected the fares, known in America as 
the conductor, came around and talked with 
me about himself and his work. He and the 
driver were stout fellows with pleasant faces 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 323 

and genial manners. The driver was paid 
twenty-five shillings a week for his work, and 
the conductor fifteen shillings, equivalent to 
$25 and $15 a month, American money. It 
is scarcely a wonder that they both were anxious 
for me to procure jobs for them in the United 
States. 

About four miles east of Portrush we came 
opposite the ruins of Dunluce Castle, a vast 
pile of gray turrets, walls and towers, built 
on the summits of jagged and precipitate masses 
of rock arising from the ocean a hundred feet 
below. These ruins are picturesque in the 
extreme. The rocks upon which the castle 
is built are connected with the shore by a nar- 
row wall only eighteen inches in thickness 
which was built in the place of a former draw- 
bridge. When the castle was in use it must 
have been quite impossible for an enemy to 
take it or even to reach it at all except by cross- 
ing the drawbridge. 

In one of the chambers of the gray old castle 
a Banshee is said still to reside. The older 
and more superstitious folk in that region are 
confident that she makes her home among these 
ancient and gloomy ruins, else why is it that 



324 SHAMROCK-LAND 

the chamber is always kept swept so clean, and 
why is it that one can hear on stormy nights 
her wail arising above the sound of the waves 
which beat against the cavern walls under- 
neath the castle rock ? 

One of the rooms of the castle is suspended 
in the air, being held in position only by con- 
nection with the rest of the structure. That 
portion of the rock upon which it was built 
has fallen into the sea. There was a similar 
happening in 1639 when the Marchioness of 
Buckingham was entertaining guests in the 
castle. It was a stormy night, and the waves 
boomed outside against the cliffs, but those 
within felt snug and secure. However, late 
in the night a portion of the cliff gave way and 
precipitated one of the apartments adjoining 
the kitchen into the waves. Eight servants 
who were sleeping therein went down into the 
sea with the stones. 

Though there is lack of definite data, it is 
thought that Dunluce Castle was built by the 
McQuillans about 1550. For several centuries 
its history was replete with romance and tragedy. 

The day when I saw the castle the sun 
streamed down upon it softly, the waves below 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 325 

were gentle, and all along the grassy tops of 
the cliffs summer daisies were growing and 
birds were building their nests in the ruined 
walls. 

Two miles east of Dunluce is the old village 
of Bush Mills, a pretty rural town of about a 
thousand inhabitants, situated in the midst 
of a country of grass and grain. The Bush 
River, upon which it is situated, is a fine stream 
which turns the wheels of factories and fur- 
nishes good fishing. 

Making a sharp turn at Bush Mills and 
proceeding northeast through the green fields 
and along the rolling hills, one soon reaches 
the end of the tramway line where he alights 
and walks up the hill to the tourists' hotel. 

The first evening after my arrival I ate sup- 
per in a dining-room overlooking the sea, 
attended by Swiss waiters and entertained by 
an old German professor who had come hither 
with his Frau to recuperate after a hard win- 
ter's lecturing in one of the universities. 

After supper I set out alone to explore the 
Causeway. I fought off all proffers from guides, 
for I was determined that this evening should 
be one of quiet enjoyment of nature. 



326 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Descending a long and in some places steep 
decline, I at last found myself almost on a level 
with the sea. Here my walk abruptly ended 
until I produced the sixpence which was re- 
quired of me before I could be admitted through 
the turnstile. 

"The rocks are wet," said the old gate-keeper. 
"See that ye keep a firm step over the smooth 
stones, else we might have to come after ye 
in a wheelbarrow. But jist go where ye will 
and enjoy yourself to the utmost." 

In ten minutes more I had seen the Giant's 
Causeway. I hardly knew what to think of 
it at all. This was one of the world's great 
wonders, but to me there was nothing sublime 
there. No lump came into my throat, and no 
tears into my eyes. I must confess that I was 
disappointed. I had seen pictures of the Cause- 
way in school geographies when a child, and 
I expected to see here some of those gigantic 
masses of rocks and stormy waves. But the 
sea was rippling quietly on the shore, and the 
stones of the Causeway were small indeed. Yet 
there was something remarkable there unlike 
anything which I had seen before. There 
spread out before me were forty thousand pil- 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 327 

lars of stone, all apparently about twenty inches 
in diameter, and with a few exceptions all hav- 
ing five or six sides, cut with an exactness 
approximating a geometrical figure. These pil- 
lars, they say, are jointed like bamboo, the 
sections having a convex base and a concave 
top. The columns are down on the shore 
only a few feet above the level of the sea. One 
may walk around on the tops of the stones 
where he pleases and make such observations 
as suits him — wondering the while how it 
was that Dame Nature should ever have thought 
of effecting such a freak as this. 

After wandering around for some time upon the 
Causeway stones, I went up and sat on a bench 
with the keeper and several of his visitors, 
possibly neighbors of his who had come to 
look out over the sea, tell stories, and while 
away the twilight hours. Among them was a 
Scotch-Irishman of above middle age who 
talked to me for some time about the Land 
Act of 1903. He himself had purchased a 
small farm under this act, paying for it with 
money borrowed from the Government. He 
was glad indeed to get from under the thumb 
of the landlord. He felt now like a free man. 



328 SHAMROCK-LAND 

"Now," said he, "I have no more dealings with 
the landlord than I do with the devil," adding 
after some thought, "possibly not quite so 
much." The man was what might be called 
an uneducated small farmer, though he had 
good sense and was above the average in powers 
of conversation. He talked most sensible of 
Ireland and her problems, choosing rather the 
Scotch-Irish view of the matter, though he was 
decidedly democratic in spirit. He would have 
made a successful farmer in America or a shrewd 
man of business. 

An old woman was seated on a bench near 
by. She had begun talking to me when I 
first came in sight, and had kept up her con- 
versation as best she could all the time I sat 
there. She appeared to be real Irish, and her 
manner of expression was that of the South. 
Och! no, I did not have to tell her I was an 
American. She knew it as soon as I came in 
sight. She could tell Americans as far as she 
could see them. Possibly there was some 
peculiarity in their dress, but it was most of 
all their quickness and the business-like man- 
ner in which they went about everything, even 
the exploration of the Causeway. They lost 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 329 

no time in anything except the pronunciation 
of their words and the formation of their sen- 
tences. She could not understand this exactly, 
but she was certain the Irish were much quicker 
of speech. But how she did like the Americans! 
They were so cordial and so kind. And she 
had many friends in the United States. She 
was sure it must be a "grate counthry." 

And the little group continued to talk to me 
about Ireland, its affairs and its traditions. 

Did I see that green island lying out there 
in the ocean ? One of those sitting by asked 
me. Well, far out beyond it were the many 
islands off the western coast of Scotland. One 
of them was the isle of Staffa, and upon it, 
down on a level with the sea, was Fingal's 
Cave. Though the nearest Scotch island was 
scarce thirty miles across the North Channel, 
yet Staffa was ninety miles away on the north. 
At one time many, many years ago the Giant's 
Causeway extended from these cliffs where 
we sat to Staffa. Any one might be able to 
see that it had been built by giants. Only 
giants could hew and handle those mighty 
stones. The building of it came about in this 
wise: 



330 SHAMROCK-LAND 

Fin MacCoul had for many years been the 
champion of all Ireland. Not another giant 
in the country, and there were many, had ever 
dared openly to oppose him in anything. But 
over in Scotland there was one great fellow, 
Benandonner, who was most insolent in the 
messages which he constantly sent over to Fin. 
He just wanted to see Fin once and give him a 
drubbing that he would not soon forget. Only 
it was winter, and the water was cold, and he 
did not care to swim over. Fin applied to 
the king for permission to construct a causeway 
connecting the two countries, in order that 
the Scotchman might have no excuse for not 
coming. The king gave his permission — he 
was not unused to allowing Fin to have his 
way in most things — and the Irishman, who 
was a rapid workman, lost no time in complet- 
ing the causeway across to Scotland. The 
Scotch giant reluctantly came over, but he had 
no sooner planted his feet on Ulster soil than 
Fin gave him a beating that left him black and 
blue for many a day. But, like all true Irish- 
men, Fin was generous and kind, and he gave 
Benandonner permission to marry and settle 
in Ireland. This the Scotch giant was glad 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 331 

to do, being that Scotland is such a poor coun- 
try to live in anyway, and everybody knows 
that Ireland is the best country in the world. 

After the giants died the causeway went into 
disuse and gradually sank beneath the waves. 
Only portions of it might now be seen — at 
either end and on the coast of Rathlin Island. 

Beetling above us were a number of tall 
slender rocks known as the Chimney-tops. In 
Elizabeth's time these rocks were battered by 
cannon-balls from one of the ships of the Span- 
ish Armada whose crew mistook them for the 
turrets of Dunluce Castle. Thus losing its 
bearings, and the night being stormy, the ship 
went down on the rocks in that bay before us. 
It was now known as Port-na-Spania. Casks 
of gold were rolled in on the shore by the waves, 
and they say that the rocks are stained with 
Spanish wine even to this day. Many years 
later the skeletons of the lost Spaniards could 
now and then be found; and sometimes a 
skull laced up in armor would come in, with 
death laughing through the chattering jaws. 

The sun was nearing the ocean which lay 
quietly before us. The air was full of the fresh 
odors of the sea and the bloom of summer 



332 



SHAMROCK-LAND 



flowers on the cliffs. I left the little company 
there in the quiet of the approaching twilight, 
and walked up the path along the cliffs. As I 
went on I got higher and higher above the sea. 
The scenery grew wilder and the prospects 
became mightier. In some places the path 
along the cliffs was cut around boulders or 
made to hang over dizzy precipices. It was 
only after I had climbed these heights that I 
fully understood why the Giant's Causeway is 
so popular with those who love the beautiful 
and the wonderful in nature. That marvel- 
ous floor of polished hexagons down near the 
waves perhaps attracted many to the place 
that they might study the strange formations 
in stone, but it was these mighty cliffs, reaching 
from the sea up to dizzy heights that added a 
touch of the sublime which once having been 
seen can never be forgotten. 

More and more beautiful grew the wide- 
stretched sea, purpler grew the cliffs, and ten- 
derer the sky. Onward and upward still I 
went until at last I reached the summit. Be- 
fore me were no rocky mountain-sides or 
wastes of stone. Instead, there were meadows 
flecked with daisies and primroses; and coun- 



mm. 






'Z 



SUNSET AT THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 333 

try lanes, enclosed with hawthorn hedges, 
stretched into the hazy distance of this day of 
June. 

The linnets were singing their evening songs; 
sweet odors of sod-blossoms and new-mown 
hay filled the summer air. Far, far out, stretch- 
ing away from the foot of these giant cliffs, the 
sea lay, dimpled like some inland lake. 

And oh! the glory that filled the sky when 
the sun sank into the sea! I thought it was 
worth crossing the ocean only to sit there for 
an hour upon the sward of matted shamrocks 
at the top of the beetling heights, with the ocean 
sleeping at its feet, and watch the blazing red 
change to gold, and the gold to saffron, and the 
saffron to pink, — and opaline, and gray, and 
somber lead — and the evening star and the 
crescent moon of an Irish summer night. 



THE END 



INDEX 

PAGE 

Adrian IV, Pope 93 

Aghamarta Castle 14 

Agriculture and Technical Instruction, Board of . 299 

Aherlow, Valley of 95 

Ailbe, Saint 109 

"Alien" Ireland 218 

"Alien of the West, An" 250 

Anglo-Normans in Ireland 93 seq., 156 

Annahkeen Castle, near Galway 187 

Anne's, St., Church, in Cork 34 

Antrim County 152,241 

Aristocracy, Irish 218 seq. 

Arklow, Famous Woods Near 121 

Armada, The Spanish, at the Giant's Causeway .... 331 

Athlone, Garrison Town of Central Ireland 198 

Auburn, "The Deserted Village" 205^17. 

Austin, Alfred, Description of Killarney 82 

Ballaghkeeran Village, Near Auburn 203 

Ballycuirke Lough 191 

Ballycurrin Castle, near Galway 187 

Ballyhoura Hills in South Ireland 95,119 

Ballykeel Moat, Near Ballymena, in County Antrim . . 318 
Ballymena, a Flax-Manufacturing Town in County Antrim 318 
Ballymoney, a Market Town in County Antrim . 278, 279, 318 

Bann, River, in County Antrim 253, 320 

Banshee, The, Ireland's Greatest "Spirit" . 135, 136, 315, 323 

335 



336 INDEX 

PAGE 

Barr, Saint Finn, the Founder of Cork 31 

Bars, Irish, The Frequency of 236 

Bars, Irish, The Luxuriancy of 96 

Beaconsfield's, Lord, Speech on Ireland 3 

Beggars, Irish, The Importunities of 38 

Belfast, the Largest City of Ireland 21,152,253 

Benandonner, The Giant 330 

Black Head, on Galway Bay 181 

Black Rock Castle on the River Lee 14 

Blackwater River in South Ireland 308 

Blackwater Valley 94 

Blarney Castle 43 seq. 

Blarney Lake 46 

Blarney Stone, The 30, 44, 48 

Blarney, The Groves of 53 

Blarney Village 30,41,43 

Blood, Irish, Mixed 231 

Boglands of Galway 163 

Boyne, Battle of the 252, 258 

Brefni, Lord, or Chief of 92 

Brian Boru 92, 254 

Bridget, Saint 149 

Bruce, Edward, Crowned King of Ireland 252 

Buchanan, James, a Scotch-Irishman 281 

Buckingham, Marchioness of, at Dunluce Castle . . . 324 
Bush Mills, in Antrim, near the Giant's Causeway . . . 325 

Calhoun, John C, a Scotch-Irishman 281 

Cashel, City of, in County Tipperary .... 103, 107, 108 

Cashel, Rock of 103, 106, 108 

Catholic Church, The 232, 241 

Causeway, The Giant's, in County Antrim' 321 

Caxton's History 317 

Celtic Revival of Literature, The 248 



INDEX 



337 



PAGE 

Cenn-gecan, an Early King of Munster 117 

Censuses of Ireland 284 seq. 

Characteristics of the North and the South Irish . . . 263 

Charleville, Town of 95 

Chimney-Tops, The, at the Giant's Causeway . . . .331 

Church Life, Irish 240 

"City of the Violated Treaty, The" 146 

Claddagh, The, Part of Galway City 175 

Clancarty, The Lords of 45 

Clare, County 61 

Clare, Richard of, Known as "Strongbow" 93 

Classes, The Two Irish 218,231 

Clericaune, The, an Irish Spook 133 

Clonakilty, on the South Irish Coast 5 

Clonmel, The Church of, near Queenstown 14 

Clontarf, Battle of 92,254 

Cloyne, Village and Tower of 14 

Coleraine, a Town of North Ireland 320 

Comeragh Mountains in South Ireland 118 

Commerce with Southern Europe, Galway's 157 

Congested Districts Board 90, 126 

Congregationalists, The 241 

Connaught, The Province of 92 

Connemara, The Western Portion of County Galway . 156,232 

Constabulary, The Irish 69 

Corcach, The Old Name of Cork ^3 

Core, Son of Loo-ee 105 

Cordiality of Galway People 173 

Cork Harbor 15 

Cork, The Ancient City of 19,25,31 

Cormac MacCarthy 45>u° 

Cormac's Chapel, on the Rock of Cashel 109 

Corrib, Lough 175 

Country Church, The Irish 241 



338 INDEX 

PAGE 

Courtmacsherry Bay 5 

Courtship, Irish Method of 225 seq. 

Cove of Cork 10 

Creagh, Archbishop 110 

Creameries 100 

Cromlechs, Remains of Early Inhabitants .... 13, 105 

Cromwell, Oliver 293 

Cromwell's Armies at Killarney 80 

Crops of Ireland, The 304^. 

Crow, The Irish 75 

Danes in Ireland 32,91 

Dan, Father 226 

Danish Raths 203 

Declan, Saint 109 

Decrease in Population 269,282,286 

Denominational Statistics 264. 

Dense Forests of Early Ireland 104 

Description of Ireland, General 284 

Deserted Village, The ... 205 seq. 

Devil's Bit Mountains 116 

Devonshire, Duke and Duchess of 94 

Devorgilla, Wife of the Chief of Brefni 92 

Disestablishment of the Irish Church 265 

Divisions of Ireland, The Four 254 

Doneraile Park 95 

Doordry 105 

Down, County . 21,241,252 

Downpatrick, Burial-Place of St. Patrick 21 

Drake, Sir Francis 14 

Drake's Pool, near Cork Harbor 14 

Drink Bill, Ireland's Great 98 

Drinking in Ireland 96 

Drogheda, Siege Town, North of Dublin 252 



INDEX 339 

PAGE 

Dromineer Castle 187 

Druidical Remains 318 

Druidism, Religion of 105 

Druids, in Early Ireland *3>20 

Dublin City 252 

Dundalk 252 

Dundrum, Railway Station in the Golden Vale .... 144 

Dunloe, Gap of, at Killarney 63 

Dunluce Castle, on the Northern Coast 323 seq. 

Dunraven, The Earl of, a Reformer 298,311 

Durmot MacMurragh 92 

Eagle's Nest, at Killarney 63 

Early Ireland 104,178,179 

Elizabeth, Queen 255 

England's Conquest of Ireland 91 seq. 

Ennis, a Town in County Clare 232 

Episcopalians, The 241,264 

Erne River 308 

"Faerie Queene, The" 95 

Fairies, Irish Belief in 129^., 203 

Fairs, Irish 237 seq. 

Famine, The Potato 11,286 

Father Matthew 97 

Fear of the Peasantry, The Gentry's 233 

Fenian Revolt 233 

Fights on Hiring and Market Days 121 

Fingal's Cave 3 2 9 

Finian, Saint, Founder of Innisfallen Abbey 81 

Fin MaeCoul, the Giant 330 

Finn Barr, Saint, Founder of Cork 31 

Fitzgeralds, The *3 

Fitz-Stephen, James Lynch 180 



340 INDEX 

PAGE 

Fitz-Stephen, Robert 93 

"Five Years in Ireland," McCarthy 271 

Flax Manufacture 253 

Fuel, Peat or Turf Used for 168 

Funerals, Irish 242 seq. 

Gabhul 21 

Gaelic League 90,239,309 

Gaelic Tongue 131,242,244 

Galley Head 5 

Galway City 1545^., 178 

Galway County, Fences of 162 

Galty Mountains 95> n 9 

Geese, Strings of 73 

Giant's Causeway, The 321 seq. 

Glandore Harbor 5 

Glaryford, in County Antrim 319 

Glassan, "The Village of Roses" 204 

Glena Wood 82 

Golden Bridge 140 

Golden Vale of Tipperary .... 87,95,114,119,125,289 

Golden, Village of 140 

Goldsmith, Oliver 206 

Goldsmith's Deserted Village 205 seq. 

Goldsmith, The Rev. Charles 206 

Goold's Cross 103 

Grattan 149 

Groves of Blarney, The 53 

Gwynn, Stephen 127,272 

Hearth-Money Collectors' Census 285 

Henry II of England 93> 1 5& 

Hibernia 20 

Hiring Day in Ireland 119,241 



INDEX 341 

PAGE 

Homes, Neglected in Ireland 127,235 

Home Rule 88,258 

Home Rule, Scotch View of 88 

Hore Abbey, at Cashel 116 

Hospitality, Irish 52 

Imokilly, Seneschals of 13 

Inchacommaun 187 

Inchiquin 187 

Industries of the North 263 

Inishmicatreer 187 

Inishmore 181 

Innisfallen, Annals of 81 

Innisfallen, Island and Abbey 80 

Interiors of Irish Homes 291 

Intolerance of Protestants 262 

Ireland, Area of 284 

"Ireland at the Cross-Roads," by Filson Young 220,251,266 
"Ireland Industrial and Agricultural," by Coyne. . . 251 

"Ireland in the New Century," by Sir Horace Plunkett 250,275 

Irish Church, The 264 

Irish in America, The 298 

Irish Pronunciation and Speech 223 

Irish Type, The 219,222 

Irish View of England 153 

Jackson, Andrew 281 

Jackson, General "Stonewall" 281 

Jackson, Miss, Relative of Stonewall Jackson .... 232 

James I of England 255 

James II of England 258 

Jarconnaught 175, 190 

Jaunting-Car, The Irish 12 

Jeffreys, Sir James 46 



342 INDEX 

PAGE 

Jews in Ireland 241 

John, King of England 94 

Keen and Keeners, The 244 

Kenmare, Earl of, and Estate 67 

Kerry County 58 

Kerry County, Decrease in Population 125 

Kildare, Earl of ..... . no 

Killarn 105 

Killarney, Lakes and Mountains of 62 

Killarney Town 58, 61 

Kilcolman Castle 95 

Kilkenny-West, Charles Goldsmith made Rector of . . 210 

Kilkenny-West, Pinnacle of 205 

Killaloe 188 

Kinsale, Old Head of 5 

Kinvarra 188 

Kippeen, a Staff for Fighting 121 

Knockdrin Castle 187 

KnockgrafFon, Moat of . . 139 

Land Acts 294 

Land Bill of 1903 294,327 

Leane, Lough 63 

Lee, River 14 

Lee, Valley of the 55 

Leinster Province 92 

Leprahawn, The 133,203 

Limerick, County 95 

Limerick County, Decrease in Population of 125 

Limerick Junction 95 

Limerick, The Ancient Siege City 95 

Lisburn 253 

Lisdoonvarna 188 



INDEX 343 

PAGE 

Lismore, Village and Castle 94 

Lissoy, The "Deserted Village" 205 

Longford County 210 

Low-back Cars 41 

Lynch, Hannah 228 

Lynch's Castle 180 

Lurgan 253 

MacCarthy, Cormac 45, 1 10 

MacCarvill, David 116 

MacCoul, Fin, The Giant 330 

MacCulinan, Cormac no 

MacGillicuddy Reeks, at Killarney 63 

Mahony, Francis S., The Poet 54 

Mallow Junction 61,94 

Mary, Castle 13 

Mass, Sunday 241 

Matthew, Father Theobald 97 

McCarthy, Justin , 92 

McCarthy, Michael J. F 128,270 

McKinley's, President, Ancestral Home 280 

McMurragh, Dermot 92 

McQuillans, The, Builders of Dunluce Castle .... 324 

Meeting of the Waters, Killarney 63 

Methodists, The 241,264 

Mildwin O'Donoghue 81 

Millikin, Richard Alfred, The Poet 53 

Monoghan County 152 

Montaigne, Earl of 94 

Moore, Thomas 82 

Moryson's Census 285 

Moycullen, in Galway 175 

Moyne 187 

Muckross Abbey, at Killarney 80 



344 INDEX 

PAGE 

Muckross Lake, at Killarney 63 

Munster, The Province of 45, 88, 92, 269, 270 

Muskerry, The Lords of 45 

"My New Curate," by Father Dan 226 

Natfraitch, King 117 

National Schools 151,204,240,272,309 

Neagh, Lough 314 

Neglected Homes in Ireland 127,235 

Newry, a City of County Down 253 

Newspapers, Irish 25 

Norman Conquest of Ireland 91 

O'Brien, Donald no 

O'Briens, The 13 

O'Connor, Hon. T. P 98,261,269 

Occupations of the Irish People 289 

O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel 255 

O'Donoghues, The 80 

Oengus, Patrick's First Convert in South Ireland 109, 116,117 

O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone 255 

O'Neils, The, of Ulster 314 seq. 

Orangemen, Society of 257 

Oranmore 188 

Origin of Lynching 180 

Pallas, the Birthplace of Oliver Goldsmith 210 

Parnell 149 

Partial Character of the Norman Conquest 94 

Pasturage Supersedes Tillage 282 

Patrick, Saint 20,109,149,318 

Peasant Woman, The Irish 234^. 

Peasant Woman, The Irish, Her Duties 236 seq. 



INDEX 345 

PAGE 

Peat-Cutting in Galway 164^. 

Penn, William 14 

Petty, Sir William, Census of 285 

" Pigeons, The " 210,215 

Pinnacle of Kilkenny-West, The 205 

Plantation of Ulster, The 255, 266 

Plunkett, Sir Horace 250,275,311 

Politics, Irish Interest in 161 

Pooka, The 135 

Pope Adrian IV 93 

Population of Ireland 11,284 

Portadown 253 

Port-na-Spania 331 

Portrush, in County Antrim 152,321 

Potato in Ireland, The 305 

Presbyterians, The Irish 241,264,265 

Presbyterians, The Irish, Thrift of 275 

Pride, Irish 228 seq. 

"Priests and People in Ireland," by Michael McCarthy . 271 

Protestant Ireland 255 seq. 

Prout, Father, Francis S. Mahony, The Poet .... 35, 54 
Pyne, Sir Richard 45 

Queenstown 1, 10 

Queenstown Harbor 6,7 

Question, The Irish 57, 288 

Railway Stations, Irish 96 

Railway Travel, The Three Classes of 17 

Rathlin Island 331 

Raths, Peopled with Fairies 113,203 

Red Hand, The Armorial Ensign of Ulster 314 

Ree, Lough 199 

Richard of Clare 93 



346 INDEX 

PAGE 

Roads, Irish 55,224,304 

"Rock-Close, The Sweet," at Blarney 53 

Rock of Cashel, The 103,116 

"Rome in Ireland," by Michael McCarthy .... 271,278 

Ross Abbey 187 

Ross Carberry Bay 5 

Ross Castle . 79 

Rostellan Castle * 13 

Round Towers, Irish m seq. 

Sadness, Irish, Due to Climate 58 

Scotch-Irish, The 256 

Scotch View of Home Rule 88 

Scott, Sir Walter 52 

"Seething Pot, The" 250 

Seven Heads 5 

Shandon Bells, The 34 

Shane's Castle in County Antrim 315 

Shannon, The River 198,308 

Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, The 87,234,279 

Shillalah, the Weapon Used in Factional Fights .... 121 

Sliemish Mountain 318 

Slieve-na-Muck Hills 100 

Spaniards in Ireland 155^., 179 

Spenser, Edmund and His Home 95 

Sports in Ireland, Sunday 241 

Staffa, Island of 329 

Stagnation in Agriculture 287 

St. Anne's Church, Cork 34 

Stevenson, Robert Louis 81 

St. Nicholas' Church, Galway 195 

Stonewall Jackson 281 

Stonewall Jackson's Relative 234 

"Strongbow," Richard of Clare 93* x 5^ 



INDEX 347 

PAGE 

Suir, The River 140,308 

Tillage Superseded by Pasturage 282 

Tipperary County, Decrease in Population of .... 124 

Tipperary, Golden Vale of 87 

Tipperary, Town of 99 

Titled Aristocrats 220 

"To-day and To-morrow in Ireland," by Gwynn .127,250,272 

Tore Lake, Killarney 63 

Total Abstinence Society 97 

Towers, Irish Round in seq. 

Trains, Irish 247 

"Tribes of Galway, The" 156 

Turf-Cutting in Galway 164^^. 

Turf-Sellers 65 

Ulster, Province of 89,92,255,314 

University of Paris 91 

University of Virginia 223 

Unthrift, Irish 229 

Village of Roses, The 204 

Wages of Farm Hands 303 

Wakes, Irish 242 seq. 

Warden of Galway, The 180 

Waterford, The City of . . ■ 99 

Wattle, a Weapon Used in Fighting 121 

Weir Bridge, Killarney 63 

Wexford, Taken by English 93 

Wicklow County, Woods of 121 

Wild Animals and Birds, Early Irish 104 

William and Mary College in Virginia 223 

William III, Signed Charter of "City of Cashel" . . . 140 



348 INDEX 



PAGE 



William of Orange 2 C7 

Wolfe, Rev. Charles [ , 4 

Women of Ireland 218 seq 

Yeats, An Irish Poet gj 



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